


Of Baskets of Flowers, Stray Cats, and Minefields: An Unusual Love Story

by Gwyn_Paige



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, F/M, Making Out, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:04:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4798889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwyn_Paige/pseuds/Gwyn_Paige
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal Hawke and Anders meet in a doctor's office. It's all downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Baskets of Flowers, Stray Cats, and Minefields: An Unusual Love Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redtypewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtypewriter/gifts).



> This is a labor of love dedicated to my INCREDIBLE friend redtypewriter, without whom this monster would never have gotten finished. It's honestly shameful how long I kept her waiting on this, working on it on and off for almost a year and a half. Finally, finally, it's done. Thanks, Meghan, you beautiful tropical fish, for everything. :)
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Mal Hawke is all redtypewriter's. She is an amazing character and a fantastic muse, and I wish I could take credit for her. Sadly, I cannot.

Oh, _fuck_.

Those were the first words to go through Mal’s head when the doctor stepped into her private room at the clinic on a rainy Sunday afternoon. It was one of those Sunday afternoons that just felt inherently crappy no matter what state of health you were in, and for Mal it felt even worse due to the terrible migraine she was currently suffering through. She’d woken up that morning with an ominous pressure at her temple, and the headache had only worsened as the day continued. And, as the final fuck-you cherry on top of the root beer float of misery, Mal had discovered that she was completely out of her usual medication.

So. A walk to the clinic in the _loud_ and _pounding_ rain, on a _shitty_ Sunday afternoon, was seemingly in order. And, oh, goodie. Apparently her day was just about to get even _better_.

When she’d entered the clinic, a nurse had quickly (thank god for small miracles) ushered her into a room, telling her that the doctor would be with her shortly. And then, shortly, as advertised, he was.

And: Oh, _fuck_.

The doctor was hot. Incredibly hot. Think Hollywood-actor-playing-a-porn-star-in-a-movie hot. And then add gritty yet tasteful morning stubble. _That_ kind of hot.

And Mal was just sitting there in the baggy mom jeans and dirty sweatshirt she’d thrown on that morning, looking more like a homeless person than anything else. _Oh, fuck._

“And what seems to be the problem today?” the doctor said, closing the door behind him and sliding into the unoccupied chair in the—actually really damn _small_ —room. “Miss—Hawke, was it?”

“That’s me. Listen, I’ve got this _killer_ migraine right now,” Mal said, closing her eyes to the frankly self-indulgent sight in front of her. “I just need my pills, but you can’t get them without a prescription, so. Here I am. Slowly dying.” At the moment, it didn’t feel like much of an exaggeration.

The doctor chuckled, and flipped out his—notebook? whatever the hell it was doctors wrote prescriptions on—and started scribbling on it. “Well, technically I’d have to perform some tests to make sure you weren’t lying about that migraine, but seeing how you look right now, I’d say I’m inclined to believe you.” All at once the pen stopped scribbling and a look of mortification flashed across his face. “Oof. Well, that was rude of me, wasn’t it? I assure you,” he said, looking up from the paper with a very fucking cute and infuriating smile, “you look about as good as a person can look when they’re sitting in a doctor’s office.”

Mal tried to ignore the big, brown doe eyes staring into hers and held up her hands in a _don’t mind me_ gesture. “Hey, I try. Besides, migraines do wonders for my skin. I didn’t even have to moisturize this morning.”

The doctor laughed, a light, melodic sound that reminded Mal of bells, and, oh god, he _winked_ as he handed the prescription to her. What was this, an episode of _General Hospital_? Not that Mal was complaining, but it seemed as though her life had very recently become a bad daytime soap opera, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

So she did what she always did when she had no idea what she was doing: she winged it. “Thanks, Doc,” she said, taking the slip of paper and winking right back.

“I hope you feel better soon,” the doctor said as they left the room, shutting the door behind them. “And if not, well—feel free to come back, obviously. But if you do come back, ask for Anders. That’s me.”

Mal raised an eyebrow. “Are we on a first-name basis already, doctor? That hardly seems professional.”

The doctor—Anders—looked down at the ground sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. “Actually, my last name is kind of hard to pronounce, so I thought I’d give you a name you’d actually be able to remember.”

Hmm. He was smooth, she’d give him that. “I’ll keep that in mind, Doc Anders,” Mal said, allowing a quirk of a smile as she shot him a little mock salute and headed for the exit.

It was still a crappy Sunday afternoon, it was still raining, and Mal definitely still had a migraine, but in her private opinion, the day had improved exponentially within the past half hour. Especially once she discovered, upon closer inspection of the prescription, that the doctor— _Anders_ —had written his cell number down, along with a little scribble of a smiley face.

Yeah. _Oh, fuck._

* * *

**When do u get off work?**

The text wasn’t so much an unwelcome surprise as it was an unexpected one. Anders, on principle, did not like surprises, probably because in his line of work, surprises usually meant the potential risk of death, or at the very least a medical emergency. He used to get a lot more surprises when he’d been a surgeon, before—well. Before he retired from that profession and came to work at the clinic. Best to leave it at that.

Still, the unexpected buzz of his phone as he sorted through the accumulation of paperwork that he _really_ should have gotten to earlier in the week didn’t faze him too badly. It wasn’t until he noticed the unfamiliar number and read the actual contents of the text that he started panicking.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Anders said aloud, running a hand over his face as he stared at his phone. It had been a few days, Sunday to Friday, since he’d given her his number, long enough to lure him into a false sense of security. But now all of that was out the window; she was actually taking him up on his offer. The stupid, _stupid_ offer that he never should have made, because now he would have to actually go _see_ her, with her cute hair and pretty eyes and smile . . . And it wasn’t as though he _didn’t_ want to see her, he would _love_ to see her again, but, well. He was him, and she was her. It would never work out.

Not to mention he didn’t even know her _first name_. He hadn’t looked at the information the nurse had handed him closely enough; he’d only caught her surname. No. No, he wouldn’t do it. This had been a mistake from the start, and he would just have to let her down nicely now, before the whole debacle could even begin.

Anders poised his hands above the phone keys, all ready and prepared to type in a gentle version of “Sorry, but no.” Apparently, however, he was in for yet another surprise, this one far less welcome, because instead he found his fingers typing in **5:30, I’ll meet you at the coffee place on Chantry St** and hitting send before he could even think to stop them.

Anders froze, staring in horror at the screen of his phone, and watched as it buzzed again and another message popped up: **See you there, doc ;)**

A _winky face_. Good lord. Anders groaned and all but collapsed over his desktop. God, but he was in for it.

Anders collected himself and turned back to his papers, resigned to his fate. At the very least, he’d better make sure he didn’t accidentally stay at the clinic until 9 PM that night. Apparently, he had a date.

* * *

“I just want you to know, this isn’t a date,” was the first thing Mal said to Anders as the doctor pulled out a chair for her at the small table in the café he’d suggested. The place was surprisingly nice—or maybe not so surprising, Mal mused, if you took into account the huge paycheck Anders was likely blessed with. He probably made double Mal’s annual salary within a couple of months. Working in a bookstore was glamorous, but not exactly the most lucrative of businesses.

The café was small and squat and sort of crumbly round the edges, like an old shoebox. But a charming and aesthetically pleasing old shoebox, if that made any sense. There was the tinny sound of smooth jazz playing from hidden speakers, and dim enough lighting so that everything seemed relaxed and toned down a notch. The place was buzzing with patrons, most of them college kids with their laptops, sipping lattes and mochas as they stressed over finals.

So: a nice place. A good place to take a date, maybe. Not that it mattered at the moment, because Mal was most certainly _not_ on a date right now.

Anders slid into the chair opposite her, looking over at her questioningly but not without good humor. “I . . . never said it was?”

The little question-mark lift of his voice was _adorable_ , but Mal was not to be swayed. She had been smitten by this man on Sunday, but she’d been ill and her guard was down. Today, she was not going to be manipulated so easily by Anders’ dashing good looks and manly charms.

“I just didn’t want you getting the wrong idea about this whole thing,” Mal said, glancing over at the menu board and pretending to be very interested in the selection.

“I . . . won’t. I promise. Not a date. Got it.” Mal resisted the strong urge to turn her head. “Thank you for informing me.”

Mal couldn’t stop a fond hoot of laughter from welling up in her throat. “Do you talk like that with all the girls you take out?” she said, grinning, finally turning to face him.

He blushed. The man was _very_ talented at blushing. “Like what?”

“Like you just got off the boat from Whatsitsbekistan and need directions to the nearest blue-collar job.”

Anders snorted with sudden laughter, almost doubling over the table and covering his mouth with his hand. “That’s horrible,” he said, laughing despite all. “That was so offensive, I can’t even begin to—”

And now Mal was laughing along with him. “It was pretty good, wasn’t it?”

Anders wiped his eyes and set back in his chair, still smiling. “You’re funny, you know that?”

“Like, funny ha-ha, or the other one?”

“The other one. Whatever that is.” Anders waved a dismissive hand. “Strange, I suppose you’d call it. Funny strange.”

Mal lowered her eyes and pretended to inspect her fingernails. “Strange, huh? Well, not the greatest example of flattery, but I’ll take it.”

“That’s—that isn’t what I meant,” Anders cut in. “I—well. Honestly, to tell you the truth, I didn’t think you were going to call. Or text, as the case may be.”

Mal glanced up at that.

“I . . . was surprised when you did, you know, text me. I thought by now you would’ve forgotten all about it. But . . . you _did_ text, and here we are. Which is . . . strange. It was a strange thing for you to do.” Anders paused, running a restless hand through his hair. “Strange isn’t bad, though,” he added, quieter, and then went silent.

He looked sheepish, for some reason, like he’d said just a bit too much. And maybe he had, for their first not-a-date, but it was kind of sweet, in a weird, we-barely-know-each-other-but-I-might-still-make-deep-random-confessions-to-you kind of way. And, why not, maybe Mal could jump on that bandwagon too.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she conceded. “And hey, you’re pretty strange too. It’s not exactly normal to leave your number with a patient for unprofessional reasons.”

“Who says this is unprofessional?” Anders smirked. “I’ve got a stethoscope in my bag, I think. And a mini-first aid kit. I only asked you to come to this café so I could do a quick follow-up appointment.” They both laughed at that.

“We should probably order or something,” Mal said eventually, glancing at the time on her phone. “It’s practically dinnertime.”

“They’ve got some great paninis and things like that,” Anders said. “We could eat dinner here, if you wanted.”

Mal chewed on her lip for a second, thinking. This was running dangerously close to actually-yes-this-is-a-date territory. However, she had two excellent counter-arguments for this: the doctor was hot and she was hungry.

“Sure, why not?” Mal said. “But you’re paying.”

* * *

In retrospect, Anders thought from the back of the taxicab as it sped him homewards later that night, the evening had gone fairly well. Really well, if he was honest with himself. The conversation had been . . . awkward, to say the least, until they’d purchased dinner, but after that things had gone smoothly enough. Hawke had talked about her bookstore job (well, if “talking” was a synonym for “loudly but adorably bitching about the stupid customers and the even stupider employees”) and her pet Saint Bernard named Shaun of the Dead. (“No, I’m dead serious,” Hawke had said in the face of Anders’ incredulity. “That’s his full name. Obviously I usually just call him Shaun, but that’s what it says on his doggie birth certificate, or whatever it is. What can I say, I _really_ liked that movie.”)

In return, Anders had talked about his current job (and _only_ his current job), and about his cats. Honestly, he had been dreading bringing up the cats, and for good reason. He had six, all rescues from a local shelter, which seemed to be a bonus for most people, but when he started listing their (embarrassingly cutesy) names and individual quirks, fur colors, habits, meows, and scratching post preferences, people tended to get a little turned off and/or really creeped out.

Of course, Hawke just laughed and told him he needed to get a life, then stole a bite of his pasta salad.

Hawke was . . . unusual, Anders mused as he watched the flashing lights of the city stream by outside the cab’s window. He couldn’t remember ever meeting someone like her, in all his years of speaking with patients and coworkers and their families. You saw a lot of people when you were a doctor, in and out, every day, brief little meetings that were barely consequential in your everyday existence. Hawke had, on Sunday, been no different, except for the fact that Anders had felt a . . . well, he supposed he would have to call it a connection with her. And, for reasons he was still unable to discern, because of this connection, he had given her his phone number. And had accepted the not-a-date invitation.

Hawke had been right: it was _completely_ unprofessional to leave your personal cell number with a patient, _especially_ with the addition of a smiley face. And it was even more unprofessional to have dinner with them in a casual setting, date or no. Still, as Anders sat in the cab and considered the evening he had just had, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. If this had been a not-a-date, well, who was to say the next meeting wouldn’t be a real one?

If there _was_ a next meeting. Anders told himself not to get his hopes up, but he couldn’t help wondering if Hawke would call first, or if he ought to call her this time around.

That was when Anders remembered he _still_ didn’t know her first name.

* * *

Mal desperately wished time travel was possible, mostly so she could go back in time and warn her past self from a week ago not to contact a certain Dr. Anders (surname still unknown) through the number he had so graciously provided her with. Because if she had not done _that_ , she wouldn’t have invited him out to coffee/dinner that Friday, and _then_ she would not have invited him a few days later to go see a movie with her, and _then_ she would never have discovered that she had somehow become acquaintances with the _biggest damn nerd in the English-speaking world._

She had discovered this during the movie she had invited him to. (To be completely clear on this matter, she did _not_ invite him to the movie because she valued his company in particular. She simply did so because none of her friends were available that evening, and she had very much wanted to go to the movie theater and see a film. She did not like to go to the movies alone. Therefore, it was only logical that she contact one of her _acquaintances_ , which are very different from friends, and ask if he wished to accompany her to see a film that evening. There were absolutely no ulterior motives on her part whatsoever. And above all, it was most definitely _not. A. Date._ )

The movie they saw was _Titanic_ in 3D. It had been Anders’ choice. This should have been a red flag for Mal from the start, but honestly she had been far too busy _not_ eyeing the small strip of skin exposed between the hem of Anders’ shirt and the line of his jeans. (Seeing Anders in casual clothing was _definitely_ not one of Mal’s nonexistent ulterior motives. Really.)

The real terror started once they got into the theater and started watching the film. At one point, about halfway through the movie, Mal glanced over to ask if Anders wanted a refill on his drink, and saw the most incredible sight she had ever laid eyes on.

Anders was crying. Not sobbing, not blubbering or whimpering—in fact, he was making absolutely no noise. He was just staring, enraptured, up at the screen, silent tears streaking continuously down his cheeks (they traced his cheekbones with remarkable accuracy) from behind his 3D glasses.

That was when Mal knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had spent two whole not-dates with a man who cried at _Titanic before people even started dying_. In other words, probably the biggest nerd Mal had ever exchanged words with.

Once the movie was over, she confronted him in the lobby as he was dabbing his face with napkins from the concession stand.

“Oh, my god. I have no words, Anders.”

“Come on, everyone cries at _Titanic_.”

“Not _before_ the ship sinks! Jeez, Anders, I know you own six cats but this is just too much.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” He said it jokingly, but glanced over at her as he said it with a questioning look in his eyes.

Mal tossed her hair in a gesture of defiance. “Who said we were even together in the first place? I told you, last time was not a date, and this isn’t either.”

Anders laughed, and Mal found herself joining in. “Right. Of course. My sincere apologies for even thinking of suggesting such a thing.” He took her hand and bowed deeply. “Can you ever forgive me?”

She rolled her eyes and, grinning, tugged him towards the exit. “You are such a dork,” she said as he laughed behind her.

This time, they shared a cab as they went home to their respective apartments. Anders, Mal discovered, lived in a surprisingly tiny apartment complex that didn’t even have a gate at the entrance.

“Just so you know,” Mal said as Anders was exiting the cab, “I’m expecting you to take the initiative next time. I’ve got you beat two to zip, here, Doc. You’re gonna have to step up your game if you want to keep not-dating me.”

Anders just grinned and said, “Naturally. Expect a call in the next three to five business days.” Then, with a little wave, he shut the cab door and walked off into the night.

* * *

Anders didn’t call in the next three to five business days. He didn’t call in the next seven to ten business days, either, or even twelve to fourteen. In fact, he and Hawke didn’t speak again for nearly three weeks after their movie-viewing-that-was-absolutely-definitely-without-a-doubt-not-a-date.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. He would have _liked_ to see her, would have liked to speak with her, to hear her laugh, to go on more not-dates with her. But Anders was a busy man, and very invested in his work, and painfully forgetful—and so it wasn’t until two whole weeks had passed that he realized he hadn’t heard a word from Hawke since the movies.

So she really did intend to wait him out, he thought. Well, he’d just have to give her a call and apologize profusely for forgetting about his promise, and for taking so long, and they’d schedule another not-a-date, this time on his terms, and that would be that, except . . .

Except. Anders was nervous. He, the doctor, the one with an M.D., ER experience, and . . . well. Other kinds of experience that were less typical and more—well. Best not get into that. The point was, he really shouldn’t have been nervous about something as trivial as talking to a woman whom he’d more than broken the ice with at this point, anyway.

Over the course of the next few days, Anders’ fingers constantly hovered over the words “??? Hawke” on his phone’s contact list, never quite having the resolve to move the few millimeters downward.

He had all but resigned himself to a life of phone-hovering and late nights at the clinic until one late evening, while he was at a drugstore downtown buying some groceries. He was examining a selection of cup noodles when someone behind him said, in a voice he’d never be able to forget, “Holy fuck.”

Anders spun around, only to be greeted by the visage of the very person he had (there was no other word for it) angsted over for the past three weeks. “Hawke!” he said, too loudly and far too cheerily, given the circumstances.

“Well fuck me sideways,” Hawke said, a lopsided grin spreading across her face. “I had no idea that you shopped at the QuikMart too. What a coincidence. Us, corner store buddies! We should start a club.”

Anders laughed. “I’ll design the T-shirts.” Now that he was actually talking to Hawke, in person, he couldn’t fathom why he had been so hesitant to text her before.

He noticed that Hawke’s grocery basket was full of beer and wine. There was also . . . a Hallmark card?

“What’s all that for?” Anders asked, gesturing towards the basket.

“Oh, this?” Hawke hefted the basket a little higher on her arm. “A friend of mine’s having a birthday party tonight. In a bar. The beer’s basically dog piss there so they put me in charge of the drinks.” She shrugged. “Also I wanted to surprise him with an actual birthday card this year. For once.”

Anders pulled a quizzical face. “Why would you have your party in a bar and bring your own beer? Why not just have a party at home?”

Hawke grinned again. Anders felt his insides melt a little bit. “We like the atmosphere.” Suddenly she snapped her fingers, pointing at Anders and smiling like a shark. “ _I_ know! You should come along and celebrate with us! It’ll be another not-a-date, but even more so because there’ll be other people there. Whaddaya say?”

Anders wanted to say, “This is insane. I don’t know who these people are. I don’t drink. I have work in the morning. There are a million reasons to say no to you right now.” Instead he said, “Sure, why not?” and bought a pack of gum as a birthday gift.

The bar, as it turned out, wasn’t exactly what Anders had been expecting. It wasn’t like he’d never been in a bar before; he’d been in plenty, as a matter of fact, but always at the encouragement of friends. He didn’t drink much, anyway; he disliked the taste of alcohol, and college had always kept him busy enough to put drinking at the back of his mind. And _after_ college, well . . . he wouldn’t have had the chance to drink at that point, anyway. By the time he’d gotten the job at the clinic, he’d put even the thought of haunting bars completely out of his mind.

Still, the bars Anders had been dragged to as an undergrad student were at least _somewhat_ clean, and had some semblance of class. The Hanged Man was _definitely_ not one of these establishments.

The place was dark, dirty, and blaring music that was almost as loud as the drunks. It was filled with rickety old wooden tables and chairs that were packed with customers, laughing and swearing and drinking like the end of the world was due in an hour. The place was practically falling apart at the seams. It was the filthiest little hole in the wall Anders had ever seen, but the atmosphere was jovial and it must have been a well-established location for all the business it was getting on a Wednesday night.

Hawke tugged on his hand from where Anders stood gaping and led him over to one of the larger tables which was, like most of the others, surrounded by a large group of very loud, happy, drunken people.

The introductions were . . . hasty, to say the least, and Anders barely caught a name that sounded like “Fenders” before cries of welcome exploded from the group, immediately followed by cries of celebration when Hawke produced the bottles of beer and wine.

Anders declined a drink no less than five times from four different people (a short, stout man in a V-neck, later introduced to him as Varric—apparently he was the birthday boy—actually offered twice), and spent most of the evening sitting awkwardly next to Hawke as she chatted and laughed with her friends about whatever crazy escapades they had gotten up to last weekend. Anders didn’t really participate in the conversation, but he laughed along with everyone else and actually found himself enjoying his time amongst this ragtag group of strange but, in their own way, rather charming people.

Part of that, of course, was that everyone besides him was getting spectacularly drunk, which sort of made the whole thing a bit more entertaining. Hawke was the giggly, affectionate sort of drunk, which both pleased Anders and made him incredibly nervous. Pleased because it meant that Hawke was much nicer to him than usual and would occasionally clutch his arm and laugh breathlessly into his shoulder (which did all sorts of things to Anders’ heartbeat) when Varric told a particularly funny story. Nervous, on the other hand, because _oh, my god, she’s clutching my arm, what do I do, should I clutch hers back? No, of course not, that would be weird . . . oh, now she’s_ giggling _, and oh god that is so cute, the way her nose crinkles like that, and holy shit did she just snort? Oh no, she did, that was so cute, and she’s holding my arm, oh god, what do I_ do _?_

And that just about summed it up. Anders was absolutely helpless, one foot in ecstasy and one in anxiety, forever tottering back and forth between them. He hadn’t drank a drop of alcohol that evening but for all the fluttering in his chest and pounding in his head he might as well have been as drunk as Fenris, who by this time was slumped down in his chair with a pile of bottles scattered before him on the table.

Aside from the fact that Anders’ heart seemed to want to beat out of his chest and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands, the evening as a whole was quite enjoyable. Definitely better than sitting at home reading medical journals until bed, no matter how nice it was to have The Honorable Sir Pugsy curled up on his lap as he did so. That feeling lasted until the group started to stumble out of the bar, Hawke leaning heavily on Anders, one of his slightly trembling hands touching her arm from where it was wound around her shoulders. Varric, surprisingly one of the most cogent members of the party left, asked him if he would “be so kind as to return all of us to our respective homes, as it seems you’re the only one of us not completely shitfaced.”

This wasn’t the first time Anders had been the designated driver, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but it was without a doubt the strangest time so far. Anders’ poor little Honda Civic was packed full to bursting, everyone was demanding to be taken to their apartment first, some of them wanted to be taken to each other’s apartments instead, a pair of them (Fenris and Isabela?) started making out in the back, three of them were engaged in what seemed to be an extremely drunken game of twenty questions, and at one point the entire party started singing a lovingly mangled rendition of _Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall_. In any case, Anders had a hell of a time figuring out where anyone’s apartment even was, and it took an hour of backtracking, hauling drunken, flailing bodies upstairs, and profusely apologizing to landlords before everyone was (presumably) tucked safely away in (probably) the correct beds.

Everyone, that is, except for Hawke, who was by this time snoring gently against the passenger’s side window, seemingly out cold for the night. Anders _absolutely_ did not plan for her to be the last one dropped off—no, honestly, he didn’t, because now he was realizing that he had no idea where Hawke lived and was hesitant to wake her up and ask.

Well, more than hesitant, apparently, because he ended up driving around downtown for the better part of an hour, hoping against hope that Hawke would wake up and shout the directions to her apartment at him. She didn’t, of course, and so, apologies already on the tip of his tongue, Anders finally pulled over into a deserted parking lot and leaned over to Hawke’s side of the car, nudging her slightly, trying to bring her gently out of her drunken stupor.

When the movement didn’t work, Anders whispered, “Hey. Hey, Hawke. Wake up.” At this, Hawke responded with a muffled groan, followed by a lot of stretching and confused blinking on her part. Anders quickly leaned away as she peered quizzically at him, squinting through her sleep- and booze-fogged eyes.

“I’m so sorry I woke you, but you’re the only one left in the car and I have no idea where you live,” Anders said, vaguely impressed by the fact that she still managed to give him butterflies even when she was barely cogent.

“ ’S fine,” Hawke mumbled, sitting up and scrubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. After an hour of sleep she seemed to have sobered up a bit. Not much, though. She grinned loopily at him, a leftover of her giggle fits from earlier that evening. “Are you asking to come back to my place? I _told_ you, this isn’t a date, dummy.”

The affectionate tone in her voice only made his heart beat faster. “I won’t try anything funny, I promise,” he said, getting the car back into gear and peeling out of the lot. “I just want to get you home safe. Preferably before you vomit all over the dashboard.”

She flapped a dismissive hand at him in protest. “I’m not gonna vomit,” she said, with the confidence of someone who was drunk often enough to know she wouldn’t. She proceeded to tell Anders her address and a set of extremely rudimentary directions.

The remainder of the ride was spent in relative silence; not an awkward one, Anders realized, but a companionable one, one that didn’t make his stomach do anxious flips or make him wonder what on earth he should say, as most silences did. Despite Hawke’s presence, which normally made him nervous, he was strangely calm.

Maybe he was just tired, Anders mused; it had been a while since he’d been up this late. A quick glance at the dashboard informed him it was almost three in the morning—and _shit_ , that meant he had work in less than four hours. He could afford to come in late, of course; he had clocked in more overtime hours than he would ever be able to use, and skipping a few hours or even a full day of work wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Except it would. People with the flu, with pneumonia, with colds, viruses, coughs, bad backs, broken ankles, prescriptions that needed filling, medicine that needed replenishing—all these people would need a doctor, and there wouldn’t be one available. He had a responsibility, a duty, to help these people, and a simple “The doctor isn’t in today, come back tomorrow” would mean he had failed them. He couldn’t live with that. Not after he’d failed so many others, failed them so miserably he’d been forced to make a choice that he’d never regretted, but also never forgave himself for making. Part of him hated the fact that he spent his days diagnosing colds when he knew he could be doing more, but another weaker, cowardly part of him was grateful he got through most of his days seeing nothing worse than a twisted ankle or a broken nose.

He knew how much worse it could get.

Anders shook his head, trying to banish the dark thoughts from his mind. He was here, he reminded himself as he squinted through the glare of the lamplights speeding by, searching for the turnoff Hawke had given him. He was here, with _Hawke_ , of all people, who was drunk and passed out in his passenger’s seat, which wasn’t the most romantic of situations, to be sure, but all the same it was nice to know she was okay, and sleeping soundly, and to be the one bringing her home, wherever that was—the streets of this city were ridiculously complicated, how Anders ever managed to find anyplace, he’d never know—and to be with her, to be near her, and to feel the truth of those words beating a cacophony in his ribcage, and to feel the dark shadow that hung over him from his thoughts only minutes before slowly lift away, until all he felt was a lightheaded happiness, bright and glowing in the light of the dashboard and the city lights dancing past them, like the most beautiful ballet he’d ever seen, but nowhere near as dazzling as the light that danced around in Hawke’s eyes when she laughed.

Finally, he found the address Hawke had given him, a plain, brownstone apartment building, maybe three or four stories tall, the front entrance illuminated by a single sodium light that was probably covered in moths. Anders pulled up alongside the curb, got out, and walked around to the other side, opening the passenger door before lightly shaking Hawke awake again.

“Hey, Hawke, we’re home,” he whispered, as she yawned and stretched herself into some semblance of wakefulness.

“Home?”

“Your apartment. I found the address. Do you want me to help you get upstairs?”

Hawke pushed herself upright and started to get out of the car, shaking her head. “Nah, I’m—” She stumbled forward a bit, suddenly unsteady, and Anders had to catch her arms with his hands to keep her from pitching over onto the pavement. “On second thought, yeah, I could probably use some help.”

It was slow-going, Anders supporting Hawke with an arm around her waist and her arm slung over his shoulders, but eventually they made it upstairs to Hawke’s apartment (number 932). On the landing, Hawke fumbled with her keys and just barely managed to get the door open, stumbling into the room as she did so. She immediately collapsed on a small air mattress lying in the middle of the room—the very _small_ room, Anders noted as he shut the door behind them. The apartment was as bare-bones as you could get—a main room with a couch that had seen better days, a desk where a laptop sat humming away, a miniscule kitchenette, and a small room off to one side that Anders assumed was the bedroom.

Hawke didn’t seem particularly interested in heading in that direction, though. By the time Anders had found a mug and filled it with tap water from the tiny sink (stacked with dirty dishes) and knelt down next to Hawke to offer her a drink, she was practically asleep again.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said, doctor instincts kicking in as he rolled her onto her side and nudged her awake once more.

Hawke groaned in complaint as her eyes opened but she quickly changed her tune when she saw the proffered water, grabbing it from Anders and chugging it down as best she could while still lying horizontally. Anders chuckled at the sight; drunkards rarely realized it until they were sober again, but drinking that much alcohol made one incredibly thirsty. Hawke appeared to be no exception.

Mug drained of its contents, Hawke shifted to go back to sleep, but Anders stopped her with a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder. “You can’t sleep on this thing,” he said, gesturing to the mattress.

“Obviously I can,” Hawke snapped back, but she looked so sleepy and disheveled it lost its effect.

Anders grinned. “Okay, you _can_ , but you shouldn’t. You’ll wake up with an aching back and a crick in your neck in addition to an atrocious hangover, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Hawke rolled her eyes but conceded, “No, _Doctor_ , we wouldn’t.”

“Good,” Anders said, and then proceeded to lift Hawke off of the mattress, arms hooked under her knees and shoulders, and carry her across to the bedroom door.

“What the _fuck_ , Anders!” Hawke cried, seemingly caught between throwing herself out of his grip and clinging to his shoulders to avoid falling to the floor. Anders could only laugh as she flailed, herself half-grinning up at him even as she tried to scowl.

“I hate you,” she said, still grinning, as he deposited her on the bed and arranged the blankets around her. “You don’t have to do that,” she mumbled, making a half-assed attempt at grabbing the covers back, but he shook his head and continued with his work. Apparently, Hawke was too tired to complain, because she didn’t say another word after that.

Anders had thought she was asleep, and was going to switch off the bedroom light and take his leave when Hawke murmured, “Contacts.”

Anders blinked twice, then walked back over to Hawke’s bed and leaned over her. Her eyes were still closed. “Pardon?”

Hawke smirked and opened her eyes. “Posh asshole. Who the fuck says ‘pardon’ anymore.”

Anders gave her a look that said—roughly—“stop trying to change the subject because you know I’m not going to ask again.”

Hawke sighed and sat up slightly on the pile of pillows by her head. “I need to take out my contact lenses. Otherwise my eyes will sting like a bitch when I wake up. But I don’t wanna get up, so you’re gonna have to bring me my case and my glasses. They’re on the dresser over there.” Hawke made a vague motion with her hand towards the foot of the bed, but the room was even smaller than the main one had been, so Anders had no trouble locating the squat, ancient-looking dresser (spilling over with clothes, stray sleeves and—Anders blushed—bra straps dangling out) on the other side of the room.

“Whatever happened to asking nicely?” Anders said, even as he made his way around the bed and towards the dresser. True to Hawke’s word, on top of it there lay a pair of red horn-rimmed glasses and a plastic case where one would, Anders assumed, keep their contact lenses.

Hawke snickered as he brought the items over to her. “Asking nicely doesn’t get you shit in this world,” she said matter-of-factly as she popped out her lenses and laid them in their case.

Anders gave her a look as he handed her the glasses. “Now, you don’t _really_ believe that, do you?” he said, not unkindly.

Hawke unfolded the glasses and slid them on, saying, “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” Despite the dim lighting, Anders could tell she was smiling. He could also tell she looked absolutely _adorable_ in those glasses. _Be still my heart,_ Anders thought, but it didn’t obey him. It never seemed to do what he wanted it to, these days. Not around Hawke, at any rate.

Hawke had begun to duck back underneath the covers, but she stopped abruptly and started to laugh, loud and long (a rarity for her, and Anders felt his disobedient heart flutter once again). “Fuck, I’m really stupid,” she said, removing her glasses and practically slamming them down on the bedside table next to the contact case. “I can’t sleep with my _glasses_ on, either. Dummy,” she chided herself, still chuckling.

Anders laughed right along with her, and for just a moment, with Hawke curled up in bed and Anders perched on the covers beside her, with the dim lamp on the opposite side of the room their only light source, with the digital clock on the bedside table reading sometime around four AM, with only the sounds of their shared laughter and the distant echoes of police sirens to fill the too-early morning air, for just a moment, Anders felt like it would be the easiest thing in the world to lean down those precious few centimeters and kiss her.

Their laughter died down and the moment passed as quickly as it had come, but Anders’ heart, the traitor, was still beating double-time from just the thought. _Could I?_ Anders wondered, staring down at Hawke’s lovely, still-smiling face. _Could I just . . . lean down, just like that, and . . . ? No. No, no, no, that would be so_ inappropriate _Anders, get your act together, she is inebriated and exhausted and needs her sleep, now is literally the worst time you could ever even think about pulling a move like that, and honestly_ never _would be a better option, considering you are nothing more than casual acquaintances at this point, for goodness’ sake, you barely know a thing about each other!_

But even as the words raced across his mind, Anders knew they weren’t true. For the past couple of months, if one neglected the three-week hiatus, he and Hawke had spent a surprisingly large amount of time with one another—at least for two people who were decidedly not dating, nor friends. They’d learned a lot about each other—Hawke knew more about him than Anders knew about her, but he had still managed to compile a good-sized list throughout the sequence of their brief not-dates, and it was growing even now. He’d learned that Hawke had insane (but lovable) friends, needed glasses (and needed to wear them more often), loved _Shaun of the Dead_ (both the movie and the dog), had the _cutest_ little gap between her two front teeth, liked weird music that sounded like a cross between hip-hop and folk songs (but wasn’t that bad once you got used to it), had an amazing smile and an even more amazing laugh, was smart and funny and clever and sometimes mean but never cruel, never purposefully malicious or rude, and maybe sometimes she pretended to be tougher than she actually was, and maybe sometimes she failed at that spectacularly, but that was the best part really, the fact that she wasn’t perfect, wasn’t made of cold polished marble, the fact that her apartment was messy and she was a giggly drunk and she yelled too loudly and cursed too often and had terrible migraines and frequented filthy bars, and above all, the fact that she was imperfect might have been the best thing Anders had discovered about Hawke.

Anders’ hand was resting just a few inches away from Hawke’s, on top of the covers, and it trembled so briefly it might not have happened at all.

“You’re funny,” Hawke said, her eyes closed again, the room quiet, their shadows thrown across the walls in odd patterns. Anders thought fleetingly of caves made of stone, of torches burning faintly, held up to strange carvings in the walls, ancient writings of a long-dead people returned to life by the crackling breath of flame and the furious scribblings of ink on crumpled parchment. He knew not where the thought came from, and he would later be unable to recall it in detail or in context, but the thought was there, in that moment, all the same. He thought of discovery, and wondered if he should kiss Hawke after all.

Instead, he said: “Funny ha-ha, or the other one?”

Hawke’s eyes didn’t open. She didn’t smile, either. “I don’t know.”

She was snoring in moments. Anders switched off the lamp and washed the mug in the sink before leaving the apartment with his keys in his hand.

* * *

 _One day,_ Mal thought as she pulled on a pair of relatively unwrinkled slacks, _I’m going to wake up from a night of heavy drinking like a cartoon princess. Hair done, cheeks rosy, tweeting birds outside my window, all that shit. One day, hangovers will cease to plague me, and I will be free to destroy my liver and ruin my reputation without fear of a painful retribution on the morrow morn._

Today, however, was apparently not that day. Mal had awoken not to singing birds, but rather to the deafening barking of Shaun, who, poor thing, was still shut up in his kennel beside Mal’s bed. She’d completely forgotten to tell Anders to let him out last night, and the poor dear had to be rushed straight downstairs to the little patch of grass behind the apartment complex to relieve himself. Now Mal was struggling into a pair of slacks, head still pounding like a jackhammer, wondering if it was too late to simply crawl back into bed and pretend the day had never even started in the first pl—

 _Wait._ Mal’s thoughts ground to a halt, and she could almost feel the gears in her brain reverse as she backtracked through what she had just been thinking. _Shaun hadn’t been let out when she got home last night because she’d completely forgotten to tell . . ._

“Oh, fuck,” Mal said.

Her hands were on her phone faster than she’d ever moved, dialling Anders’ number so quickly she was fairly sure she’d beaten a record. She still didn’t have a shirt on and she was supposed to be at work in twenty minutes, but fuck it all, she was going to find out what the hell had happened last night.

Anders answered on the first ring, and apparently both of them were feeling speedy that morning because he launched into a hurried explanation before Mal could get even one word out. “Hawke! God, Hawke, I’m so sorry, I should have left a note or something, it was so irresponsible of me to just leave you like that, without making sure you weren’t going to vomit in your sleep or wake up disoriented and fall out of bed and hit your head on something and black out. You must have been so confused, Hawke, _god_ that was really stupid, what kind of a doctor am I, anyway?”

And it was so cruel of her but Mal _had_ to laugh. Leave it to Anders to take a situation like this and apologize for entirely the wrong thing. “Calm down!” she said, interrupting his ramblings. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, I’m fine. I was just wondering what the hell went on last night. It’s all pretty vague on my end, I barely even remember you coming up to the apartment.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and Mal was almost concerned she’d managed to scare him off, when Anders’ voice crackled through the receiver: “Oh. Well, in that case, I suppose there’s not much to tell. I helped you upstairs and into bed, got you some water, fetched your glasses for you, and you fell asleep. That’s when I decided to leave.”

It all sounded vaguely familiar to Mal, as though she’d experienced it in a dream. This wasn’t exactly surprising; she _had_ gotten pretty drunk last night—she’d expected to, Varric’s parties were always crazy—and that was usually how she recalled her drunken exploits the morning after. “Nothing else happened?” she asked, fearful of the answer. She’d done some . . . pretty forward things while drunk, in the past.

“Nothing at all.” Anders’ tone left no room for doubt, which eased Mal’s worry quite a bit, but it was hard not to imagine him blushing up to his ears in that moment. Knowing Anders, he probably _was_ blushing.

Mal laughed as a blurred memory suddenly resurfaced. “You fucking carried me to bed, you asshole!”

Anders chuckled sheepishly over the phone. “Yeah, I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t remember that part. I’d like to keep my hands attached to my body the next time we meet, after all.”

Mal had been fishing around in her dresser drawer for a clean blouse, but she paused when she registered what Anders had said. “The next time?” she said, trying to laugh it off. “Silly man, who said anything about there being a next time?”

“Well,” Anders said in what Mal had privately deemed his “doctor voice” (emphasis on _privately_ ), “there’s been plenty of next times so far. I just naturally assumed there were going to be other ones.”

Mal took a moment to pull on a mostly presentable T-shirt and grab her car keys from the kitchen table before returning the phone to her ear. “You’re getting cocky, Doc,” she said. “Maybe you’ve run out of next times. Maybe after that stunt you pulled carrying me to bed like I was a little kid up past her bedtime I don’t ever want to see you ever again.”

The last sentence had come out harsher than she’d meant it to, but Anders laughed nonetheless. _Dork._ “You don’t mean that,” he said, and Mal hated how smug he sounded—because he was absolutely right, and he knew it.

But damned if Mal was going to give him the satisfaction. “Oh, I most definitely do mean it,” she said, picking up her purse from the floor of the kitchen where it had landed last night. “You have hereby run out of next times to cash in. I’m done. Spelled D-O-N-E, in case you needed a reminder.”

Anders was laughing harder now. “Wait, so now I don’t know how to _spell_? You’ve really demonized me here, Hawke.”

“That would be an insult to demons everywhere.”

“I’m hurt, Hawke, I really am,” Anders managed through his peals of laughter (that were almost irritating. Almost).

As she shut the apartment door behind her and started downstairs, Mal said, “Not nearly as hurt as you’re going to be when I get a chance to get back at you for the carrying thing. You’ll have bruises on your bruises, I can promise you that.”

“Does that mean we will be meeting again, after all?” Anders said, sounding almost giddy at catching her mistake.

Mal rolled her eyes as she exited to the parking lot and headed towards her black, beat-up vintage Mustang. “Fine, you got me. We’ll meet one more time, just the once, so I can beat you up and throw you in a dumpster. Then we’ll be even.”

Anders sounded like he was beaming. “Lunch at the café, then?”

“This isn’t a date,” Mal forewarned as she revved the engine—thank god the thing decided to start today; she was already running late as it was.

“Naturally,” Anders said, and hung up while he was still chuckling.

The morning slogged on so slowly Mal was halfway certain she was stuck in some kind of time vortex that made customers ridiculously annoying and business disappointingly slow. She was _definitely_ not anxious for lunch to come. That wasn’t it. The clocks in the bookstore must’ve been slow, that was all. Or maybe some malevolent god just wanted to play some kind of sick prank on her. Anxious to see Anders? Not her. Not ever.

Not that she _didn’t_ want to see him. Honestly, she was neutral towards the whole thing. Certainly there was worse company out there, and Anders was a nice substitute until better company came along. That, really, was the reason she kept inviting him out on not-dates. Not because of his looks, which she’d mostly gotten over at this point anyway. Not because of his witty remarks, which she could outdo in a second. _Certainly_ not because of that laugh of his, where his nose would scrunch up and his cheeks would get all red—god, he looked so utterly dorky whenever he did that. No, it was the temporary promise of companionship, emphasis on _temporary_. Nothing more, nothing less.

That’s what Mal was repeating to herself in her head over and over again, hunched over the deserted checkout counter, trying to think about literally anything else but Anders’ stupid little blushing face, when (speak of the devil and . . .) her phone buzzed and the face lit up with the one name she _didn’t_ want to see right now.

 _Don’t even look at it,_ Mal told herself. _Don’t you dare slide that screen—_

Too late.

The text read: **Can’t wait for lunch. Sitting in my office, exhausted. Sort of regretting staying up so late. I had fun, though.**

 _Fuck it,_ Mal thought, and she typed out a reply. **Same here. hope my buddies weren’t too much for u, they can get wild sometimes**

Anders’ reply came only a few moments later. **Pfft, that was nothing. Have you ever seen doctoral students after a few drinks? Absolutely crazy.**

Mal muffled her laughter with a hand. Her boss was already giving her dirty looks from across the store for having her phone out in the first place, so the least she could do was try to stay quiet. **Can’t say i have, but i have a feeling my friends could drink ur friends into the ground**

Another almost instantaneous response. **You’re probably right about that. :)**

**I didn’t know u used emoticons, doctor ;)**

**Only very rarely. Only when I mean them, in fact.**

**Does that mean i actually made u smile just now**

**You always make me smile.**

That stopped Mal in her tracks. That was . . .  surprisingly forward, for Anders. She hadn’t been expecting that kind of response at all, and the glowing words on the screen floored her for a moment. She was . . . well, not _flattered_ , definitely not that, but rather . . . gratified. That was a good word. She was _gratified_ by Anders’ reply, and the trouble with that was she didn’t know how to respond. For once, she didn’t have a sassy comeback or some other trick up her sleeve to utilize.

So instead, she (almost literally) threw up her hands, (literally) said “Fuck it,” and played along. **U almost sound like ur flirting with me, doc ;)**

The next reply did not come as quickly as the previous ones. **Not with that grammar, I’m not. Can’t you take a moment to spell out the words you want to say? Unless you’ve forgotten how to.**

Mal grinned. This was far more familiar territory. She quickly typed out **U were the one who couldn’t spell, remember?** but hesitated before she hit send. While she was relieved the conversation was returning to their usual banter, Mal was curious as to why Anders was so keen on changing the subject. She squared her shoulders and typed in an addendum: **and u still haven’t answered my question**

 **And what question would that be?** was Anders’ swift reply.

Mal rolled her eyes. Honestly, sometimes she couldn’t tell whether Anders was being dumb as a joke or for real. **Were u actually flirting with me earlier**

Soon after she sent the text, Mal had to help out a customer on a wild goose chase for some obscure volume that the store didn’t carry, so she didn’t see Anders’ latest text until she returned to the counter and stole another glance at her phone. **Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t.**

**That doesn’t give me much to work with, doc**

**What can I say, I’m enigmatic.**

**Ur avoiding the question at hand here**

The next text was a while in coming. **How about I tell you today at lunch?**

**Fine, but u have to buy me a drink since ur making me wait**

**Deal.**

Mal slid her phone back into her pocket, satisfied. Whether or not this was going where she thought it was going (and she wasn’t entirely sure if she was pleased about that or not), she was getting a free drink out of it no matter what happened. Not a bad trade, if she was honest.

The Chantry Street café was less crowded than it had been the last time they’d eaten there (their very first not-a-date, as Mal recalled), so Mal had no trouble finding Anders sitting alone at a small table near a window when she walked into the restaurant at a quarter after noon.

When Mal entered, Anders was hunched over his phone (probably going over patients’ files or something equally anal), but as she approached he glanced up and the biggest, dopiest grin Mal had ever seen spread across his face. It would have been almost heartwarming if it hadn’t been so comical. Anders’ chiseled cheekbones and persistent five o’clock shadow lended themselves more to a serious, doctorly frown or a smug grin than to a wide, goofy smile. Still, Mal swallowed her laughter and instead grinned right back, plunking herself down into the seat across from him. “Well, apparently someone’s happy to see me.”

“Oh!” Anders blushed as red as the Communist Manifesto and make a conscious effort to wipe the smile off his face (which, to Mal’s delight, failed spectacularly). “Yes, well. I am happy to see you. I mean, we _did_ plan on meeting here, at around this time, so I _was_ expecting you, and now that you’re here, well, then, now the meeting can begin. As it were.”

Not for the first time, Mal thought, _You are the biggest dork this planet has ever seen._ Nonetheless, she didn’t let the man’s rambling distract her from her goal. “So, about earlier,” she said, steepling her hands on the table and leaning forward in her chair like a diabolical CEO.

Anders, in turn, fell back into his in defeat. “I _knew_ I shouldn’t have made that deal. I thought for sure you’d forget, and of _course_ you didn’t, and now I’ll have to deliver, won’t I?”

Mal’s lips twisted into a grin despite herself. “You really don’t want to buy me that free drink, do you?”

“What?” Anders glanced up, momentarily confused. “No, not the free drink, hell, I’d buy you one anyway. It’s the flirting thing I was nervous about.”

Mal raised an eyebrow. “So . . . that’s a yes, then? You were flirting with me?”

Anders nodded, looking positively mortified. “Trying to, anyway. Obviously not successfully, because the whole _point_ of flirting is so the other person realizes what you’re doing, and apparently you didn’t realize what I was doing, not without asking me about it, at any rate. So I was sort of hoping you’d forget about the whole thing and then I wouldn’t have to admit what an absolute failure the attempt was, but you _did_ ask, and, I mean . . .” Anders put his elbows up on the table, never once looking up at Mal. “I’m not helping the situation, am I?” he said miserably.

Luckily for Anders, Mal had barely listened past the first sentence. “So you _were_ flirting with me? You _like_ me, don’t you?” At Anders’ despairing nod, Mal pumped her fist in the air triumphantly. “I knew it!” she cried, her outburst turning most of the heads in the café in their direction. “I fucking knew it! You’ve been into me ever since _Titanic_ , haven’t you?”

Anders looked up sharply, finally making eye contact with her. The poor man resembled a puppy who had been expecting a smack with a newspaper but instead had received a treat. “You mean . . . you don’t mind? You’re not angry?”

“Oh, I’m _angry_ , all right,” Mal said, and now she realized that she actually was a _bit_ pissed off. “Angry that you had me convinced you weren’t interested for at least a month somewhere in there. You were such a fucking gentleman about the whole thing, I was sure you just wanted to be friends, and then you didn’t say a _thing_ to me for three fucking weeks—”

“You counted?” Anders said. Jesus Christ on a cross, he was fucking _smiling_.

Mal almost decked him across the face right then and there. “Of course I fucking _counted_ , Anders, who the fuck wouldn’t? I mean, _think_ about it, some hot guy goes out with me on a couple of not-dates, we hit it off, he seems interested, says he’ll call me again, and then, _blam_ —nothing. Fucking nothing for three fucking weeks. What am I supposed to do with that?” She wasn’t yelling, and in fact she wasn’t even all that upset—just confused. And _really_ fucking frustrated that all Anders was doing was grinning like a loon the entire time, when by rights he should have been cowering before her.

“You _counted_ ,” Anders said, giddy as a kitten at Petco. Mal was pretty sure he hadn’t heard a word she’d just said. “That means you missed me!”

“That’s not the—”

“And _that_ means you like me, too, don’t you?” Anders was leaning over the table, index finger pointing straight at Mal, a victorious grin on his stupid, pretty face, and Mal wondered how on earth the tables had managed to turn on her so quickly.

“I never said _that_ ,” Mal said, desperately trying to fumble for a way out of the situation. “And that isn’t the _point_ , Anders, this is about _you_ liking _me_ , not the other way around!”

“That wasn’t a no-o,” Anders sing-songed at her, and it would have been adorable at literally any other time, but right now Mal was trying to be angry with him.

“Stop trying to change the subject!” Mal took a deep breath and let it out through her nose. “Okay, just so we’re clear, _you_ like _me_ , yes?”

“I—” Anders cut himself off. “Yes.”

“So if you’ve been into me pretty much this _entire time_ —don’t you dare deny it, I can read you like a book, Doc—why did you avoid me like the plague for the better part of a month until we ran into each other _accidentally_ on Varric’s birthday?” And then Mal’s eyes grew wide, because something had finally clicked in her head. _“Ohhh . . .”_ she breathed.

Anders’ brow furrowed into a tight little line on the bridge of his nose. “What? What is it?”

“There’s another woman, isn’t there?” Mal asked.

Anders blinked twice, mouth hanging open in a comical O shape, before bursting into peals of laughter. “You—you thought that _I_ —?” He couldn’t manage to choke out anything else through his mirth. For the second time that day, heads started to turn their way again.

“Shh, okay, great, fine, I get it, shut up,” Mal hissed, shaking Anders’ shoulders and trying to get him to stop. “Okay, _obviously_ you’re not currently involved with anyone. I had no idea it was such a ridiculous notion,” she said, once Anders had quieted a little.

“Sorry about that,” Anders said, wiping his eyes. “But it is _completely_ ridiculous. I haven’t dated in . . . god, it’s been nearly a decade now.”

“Wow,” Mal said. “I’m no rover myself, but jeez, I’ve heard of nuns who get more action than that.”

It came out ruder than she’d meant it to, but Anders didn’t seem to take offense. On the contrary, he seemed eager to pounce on the opportunity to switch the focus of the conversation back to Mal. “Sooo, back to what we were saying _before_ . . .”

“No,” Mal said, stopping him with a hand held up in a “halt” gesture. “No, we will _not_ go back to—”

“ _You_ like _me_ , right?”

Mal put her head down on the table and banged it against the polished wood a few more times for good measure. “Yes,” she said, voice muffled from her down-facing position. “Yes, Anders, I do like you, _dammit_.”

Mal couldn’t see Anders’ reaction (and, in fact, couldn’t see anything except her own knees and shoes), but she definitely heard his whoop of victory and subsequent cry of _“Yes!”_ and now she was positive the entire café knew exactly everything that had just transpired between them.

Mal lifted her head and was greeted with the sight of Anders leaning over the table above her, wearing the same goofy grin as before. “That’s why,” was all he said.

Confused for the umpteenth time that day (she was definitely off her game this morning), Mal sat up in her chair, asking, “What?”

“That’s why I stayed away for three weeks. I was nervous to call you, or text, or anything, because I thought you _didn’t_ like me.” Anders ran a hand through his hair and let out a hoot of joyous laughter. “But you _do_ like me. You really do. I can hardly believe it.”

Despite herself, Mal laughed with him, and put a hand on his shoulder, gently shoving him back down into his chair. “Dork,” she said fondly. “I figured it was painfully obvious. Frankly I’m relieved I wasn’t as transparent as I thought.”

Anders shook his head, staring down at his hands, twisting over themselves idly on the tabletop. “You were a complete mystery. Maybe I’m just terrible at reading people, I don’t know, but I honestly thought you didn’t even care all that much.” He smirked, glancing up to meet her eyes. “Maybe it was because you insisted on calling our little ‘meetings’ not-dates.”

Mal folded her arms in front of her chest. “Well, they are not-dates,” she said. “Were. Are. I don’t know. _This_ is certainly not a date, that’s all I know.”

“Oh!” Anders stood up from his chair so abruptly he jostled the table and the salt shaker tipped over. “That reminds me, we came here for a reason. I should get us some lunch. What do you want?” he said, pulling a wallet from his pocket. “On me, of course.”

“Fantastic,” Mal said, relieved that she was getting a free meal as well as a drink. “I’ll have the most expensive thing on the lunch menu and a large hazelnut macchiato.”

Anders gave her a look.

“Hey, I’m broke and you’re a doctor. And _you_ offered. Thank you,” she added, because for some reason she felt like she should. Manners and all that shit.

With Anders up at the counter ordering their food, Mal had a moment to sit back and consider the exchange that had just passed between the two of them. Honestly, she was pleased they’d gotten everything out in the open; she’d had her suspicions about Anders’ feelings towards her, that much was true, but it was nice to finally hear him say it. And (though she hated to admit it) it was also nice, in a way, to tell Anders about her feelings towards him. There was a weight that had been lifted off her chest, so to speak, and she felt strangely pleased—not just with herself, but with life in general. It was a nice feeling, and not something she felt often while sober.

Since they’d started seeing more of each other, Anders had become more than just a pretty face. The pretty face was definitely a bonus, but underneath it there was a funny, clever, charming, dorky, and—this was the most pleasant surprise of all—genuinely well-meaning man. Mal hated to generalize (which was a total lie, she loved generalizing), but most of the guys she met (who made the mistake of hitting on her) tended to be complete assholes. To be perfectly honest, she’d also been lying when she’d said she wasn’t a rover; she’d gotten around a fair bit in her time, just not necessarily with men. Girls, yes, all the time—but not recently. Come to think of it, Mal thought, it _had_ been a while since she’d gotten any kind of action. The more she considered it, though, the more she didn’t want . . . _whatever_ this thing was with Anders to be some fling that she’d forget about completely two days later.

 _Like it or not,_ Mal thought, _I might just be in this for the long haul._ The thought didn’t chill her as much as she expected it to. Maybe she was getting soft.

By the time Anders returned to the table, laden with their bags of food and drinks, Mal had pretty much decided about how she was going to proceed with this. Still, she maintained some semblance of self-control and waited until the both of them had finished their lunches before playing her ace.

Not even looking up from her coffee as she stirred it absentmindedly with her straw, Mal said, “We should go on a date.”

Anders choked on his drink and spent the next thirty seconds coughing painfully as Mal rushed over to him and clapped him on the back until he was no longer in danger of suffocating. Tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, voice hoarse, Anders asked, “What?”

Mal crossed back to her side of the table and sat down, saying, “I’m afraid to repeat it, I might actually kill you this time.”

“Did you say you wanted to go on a date? With me? As in, something that is not a not-date, but rather an actual date, that people in romantic relationships go on?”

Mal shrugged. “Not in as many words, but yeah, basically.”

“Oh, well, then,” Anders said, leaning back in his chair. But he didn’t say anything else.

“So . . .” Mal prompted.

“Oh! Yes. Shit, I forgot to say yes. Yes, I’d love to,” Anders said.

“Fantastic,” Mal said, returning her attention to her coffee, trying not to look as pleased as she was. She hadn’t been terribly concerned about him saying no, but, as before, it was nice to hear it said aloud. “Well,” she said as soon as she finished her drink, rising from her chair with finality. “Thanks very much for the free meal, and the gracious acceptance of my offer.”

“Leaving so soon?” Anders said, half-playfully, but with disappointment tinging his voice.

“I know you’re heartbroken, but my lunch hour is actually more like a lunch half-hour, so I have to get going,” Mal said, and was surprised by how apologetic it sounded. She was _definitely_ off her game today.

On her way back to the bookstore, Mal’s phone buzzed in her pocket. The text (from Anders, of course, because who else would it be?) read: **Meet me at my apartment at 7 on Saturday night. I’m taking you out to dinner. Somewhere that isn’t a bar or a cafe, for a change.** This was followed by an address that Mal noticed was in the bad part of town.

 _Well, that’s that,_ Mal thought, typing out a quick reply of agreement. There was no getting out of it now.

Whether she lived to regret it or not, only time would tell.

* * *

Anders checked his watch for what seemed like the fiftieth time that evening. It was only six-thirty, and it had been for the past three checks, but Anders glanced at it once more half a second later just to make sure he hadn’t blacked out and completely missed the next half hour. Of course, he hadn’t.

For the first time since he’d started his job at the clinic, Anders had taken the day off. He’d woken up that morning, glanced at his phone, remembered he had a date that night, fell out of bed in his hurry to do— _something_ , he wasn’t exactly sure _what_ , ran into the bathroom, stared at his reflection in the mirror for three minutes, ran back into the bedroom to look at his phone again, pulled on a pair of pants, stared at his phone again, pulled on a pair of socks, noted that he had to be at work in twenty minutes, picked up his phone, called in sick to work, hung up, panicked mildly for a few moments, pulled on a shirt, and sat down on his bed to consider what to do with the first free day he’d had in years.

He spent the morning herding the cats into their respective cages and, afterwards, cleaning the apartment until it was at least somewhat presentable. He spent the better part of an hour picking an outfit. There wasn’t much to choose from—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a formal event—but most of the time was spent mixing and matching the sparse number of tops and bottoms he had, trying to determine which looked the most stylish on him—not the easiest task in the world, he quickly realized, when he discovered just how little fashion sense he had. Still, eventually he was able to decide on something, and the ensemble was promptly rushed out to the dry cleaners down the street.

He had lunch at a pizzeria next to the dry cleaners and retrieved his clothes afterwards. It was about one when he returned to his building, and he hung up his clothes and had a solid two seconds of zen before it dawned on him that he was going on a _date_ that night, and he had to buy _something_ for Hawke, didn’t he? A present, chocolates, a gift card, maybe, or flowers—yes, yes, flowers, that was perfect.

And so he rushed straight downstairs again to get in his car, before realizing he’d never bought flowers in his life and didn’t even know where the nearest florist’s was, proceeded to start back up the stairs to look it up on his phone, before realizing he had his phone _with_ him, and _then_ , typing away on his phone wildly, went back downstairs and out into the street, making a beeline for a place on Sabrae Road called Merrill’s Flower Shop.

The name had rung a bell for him when he first saw it, but it wasn’t until he entered the small yet fragrant and colorful shop that he realized why. Merrill, as it turned out, was one of Hawke’s friends whom he’d briefly met Wednesday night. He hadn’t spoken to her much, but he remembered she hadn’t drank much and was somewhat withdrawn and quiet. Not so here, in the shop she apparently owned. The moment Anders walked in and the bell hanging on the doorframe tinkled merrily, she poked her head around the corner of a display of daisies and let out a surprised gasp.

“You’re Hawke’s friend, aren’t you? I remember you from the Hanged Man!” Merrill said joyously as she bustled over to the door where Anders still stood. She had a strong Welsh accent, Anders noticed, something he hadn’t detected during their brief meeting the other night.

“Yes, that’s me,” Anders said, sticking out a hand in greeting. “It’s nice to, uh . . . meet you.” To him, it seemed a little awkward to behave so formally, considering they’d already met one another, but Merrill took the greeting in stride and shook his hand.

“Likewise,” she said, smiling. “My name’s Merrill. Wasn’t sure you caught it the first time. But then I suppose you must have seen it on the storefront, at least.” She giggled. “I remember _your_ name, though—name like that, you can’t help but remember it, can you?”

Anders wasn’t entirely sure what she meant, and he was fairly sure he didn’t want to, so he changed the subject. “I didn’t know you ran a flower shop, Merrill.”

“Oh, yes,” Merrill said, moving off to return to her task of organizing the display, speaking over her shoulder and she knelt by a cluster of irises. “I _love_ my flowers. I don’t know what I’d do without them, to tell you truly. The common varieties are so pretty and pleasant, but I’ve got some really dangerous stuff in the back. Poisonous stuff, rare stuff. I can’t let you see it, you understand.” The woman sounded almost remorseful. “They won’t let me bring that out for the general public. And I suppose it’s for the best—like my own private collection, it is!—but the poor things get so little appreciation. They could be so useful, some of them, as remedies and balms and the like, but I suppose there will always be rules.”

“Ah. Right,” Anders said, staring at the saddened woman, wondering if he ought to say something in condolence. He decided against it, instead opting to have a closer look around the woman’s little store.

Though small, the place was filled to the brim with flowers of what seemed like hundreds of varieties. There were shelves and shelves of flora, in pots and vases and bouquets alike. There were pots hanging from the ceiling as well, and rows of them lining the floor. Indeed, there was barely any room for the thin walkway that curved around the shop like a long snake, giving the whole store the effect of being more like a botanical garden or a jungle than a simple florist’s. It was extremely beautiful, and Anders wondered if all florists were like this or if Merrill just put that much more effort into her shop. Seeing her bustle around the place, watering a flower here and trimming a bud there, he was inclined to believe the latter.

“So,” Merrill was saying from behind a towering bunch of chrysanthemums, “a little bird told me you and Hawke are a thing now. Though that little bird _was_ Varric, so I wasn’t sure whether there was any truth to the tale.”

Anders thanked every deity under the sun that Merrill couldn’t see him blush, and said, “Uh, well, actually that’s why I’m here. We . . . Hawke and I, that is . . . we’ve a date tonight.”

Merrill, as it turned out, could move at almost faster-than-light speeds if she heard news about Hawke’s love life. In seconds, she was standing in front of Anders, beaming from ear to ear. “So you _are_! Oh, my, this is fantastic! Oh, I’ve _got_ to tell Isabela, she’s undoubtedly got a bet on with someone, and she was just telling me the other day that Varric had better be right about all this, and frankly I agree, you seemed like such a gentleman on Wednesday night, driving everyone home like that, so sweet of you!” She could also, it seemed, talk a mile a minute when excited about something. “But oh, my, this will be so good for Hawke, she hasn’t had someone like that in her life for such a _long_ time and—oh!” Merrill clamped her hand over her mouth, looking positively mortified. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that . . .” she mumbled from behind her hand just as Anders said, “What do you mean, ‘for such a long time’?”

The tips of Merrill’s ears turned a deep red and she dropped her hand, saying, “Please don’t tell Hawke I said anything, but, I mean, it _has_ been quite a few years since she’s gone on a proper date. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I’ve known her almost our whole lives and I could tell she’s been getting antsy lately. She’d be the last to admit it, of course, and goodness knows I oughtn’t have told you, but, well, there it is.”

Anders wasn’t entirely sure how to process this, so he didn’t. “Anyway. Our first date is tonight, and I’ve never even been to a florist’s before, so I was wondering if you could help me pick something out.”

“Oh!” Merrill said, perking up immediately. “Of course! Follow me.”

The next hour or so was a whirlwind of activity in the tiny shop, Merrill spinning from blossom to bouquet, bouquet to pot, pot to vine, collecting cuttings of precisely selected flowers and tying them together into beautiful arrangements with an almost terrifying speed. She had barely lain one arrangement down on the counter when she was back up and racing to find a suitable base for the next one. Anders, for fear of being trampled, was content to stand back and watch (and worry about how much this would cost him). It was, Anders thought, truly the best show in town; in this moment, Merrill was an artist, a sorcerer, a craftsman, a master of her trade. She was in her element, and, as the stack of wrapped flowers grew higher and higher, Anders could see he’d made exactly the right choice in coming to this particular florist for help, and damn the price.

At last, Merrill’s motions slowed, her feet paused, her fingers grew still. The ribbons ceased to fly and the flowers no longer moved in an unnatural breeze in her wake. The pile of arrangements lay proudly on the counter, and Merrill stepped back at last to admire her work.

“Hmm,” was the only thing she said, and stepped forward to make some microscopic adjustment to a cluster of roses.

“There’s . . . quite a lot of them,” Anders said in the pensive silence. “They’re beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but, I mean, it’s just one date . . .”

“The more flowers, the better,” Merrill insisted, finally moving away from her small works of art to wash her hands in a nearby sink. “Hawke would never tell you this herself, but she loves flowers. Loves smelling them, loves seeing them, loves _getting_ them, most of all. Trust me. The more, the better.”

Anders sighed. “I’m glad you took that into account, and I do appreciate the effort—these are beautiful, they really are—but I don’t think . . . I don’t think I’ll be able to afford them,” he admitted slowly.

“Oh, don’t worry about _that_ ,” Merrill said, shrugging it off like the mere idea of charging him for her hard work, time, and commodities hadn’t even crossed her mind. “For a friend of Hawke’s? It’s on the house.”

“Really? Well, thank you. I mean—wow, _thank_ you, that’s very gener—”

“Oh, damn!” Merrill said, quite unexpectedly, leaping into action once again and ducking down to search for something amongst the pots and vases. “I _knew_ I forgot something, where is it—? Ah! _Here!_ ”

Merrill popped up from behind a tangle of vines, leaves in her hair, carrying something. Victoriously, she brought it over to Anders and laid it in his hands. “ _This_ is free, too.”

It was a single flower, with wide, bright red petals, its stem wrapped in feather-light tissue paper and tied with a gold ribbon.

“It’s a poppy,” Merrill said. “Hawke’s favorite flower. You can write a message on the ribbon, if you want. Best leave this one for last, in my opinion.” She winked up at him.

Anders just stared at the flower, a smile tugging at his lips. “Merrill.”

“Yes?”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Anders said, and scooped her up into a hug, taking great care not to damage the delicate poppy. Merrill just giggled and returned his embrace briefly before they drew apart and Anders stepped over to the counter to collect the other flowers. Merrill retrieved a basket from somewhere deep in the shop and they piled it full of Hawke’s bouquets.

Merrill waved at him from the door of the shop as he headed out to return to his apartment. “Good luck with the date! Let me know how it goes, won’t you?” Merrill called after him.

“I will!” he promised. Despite the large and rather heavy basket on his arm, Anders had practically floated all the way home.

Now, though, he was back to his worrisome self. He checked his watch _again_ , just to be sure. 6:32. Of course.

He was wearing his freshly-dry-cleaned suit, had combed his hair into something he hoped looked good, had shaved just enough of his five o’clock shadow off to (he hoped) look appealing, and (most important of all) a small, wrapped poppy was stuck inside his breast pocket, just out of view of anyone who might be sitting across from him at dinner. (Slightly more obvious, though, were the dozen or so bouquets of flower arrangements covering nearly every surface of Anders’ inconveniently small apartment.) He had even dug around in his kitchen cabinets for that bottle of fine wine Nathaniel had given him a few years back, to serve Hawke if (and that was a pretty big _if_ ) she decided to come back to his apartment afterwards. Everything was ready. The only thing left to do was fret and wait for Hawke to arrive.

The next half hour, unsurprisingly, was torture, but eventually, after Anders was certain an entire eon had passed, there was a knock at his apartment door.

Anders must have tripped over about seven things on his way to the door, some of which were his cats, but at last, with a victorious flair, he swung the thing open, revealing the most magnificent sight he’d ever seen.

Hawke was standing there, at his doorstep, wearing a simple red dress that went down to her knees, a leather jacket, stiletto heels, gigantic hoop earrings, and more bracelets than might have been entirely necessary. She was radiant. She looked like the kind of portrait artists would paint during the Renaissance. She was incredible. There was nothing starkly different about her, exactly—perhaps a little more makeup than usual, perhaps the clothes were a bit nicer, but other than that, she was the same old Hawke Anders had known since they’d first met. But for some reason he couldn’t define, seeing her now, at his doorstep with a purse slung over her shoulder, with rouge on her cheeks and an expectant smile on her face, about to see his apartment, about to meet his cats, about to go out to _dinner_ with him, she was dazzling.

Anders felt himself go weak in the knees, and thought: _Oh, fuck._

“Are you gonna stand there gawking at me all night, or are you gonna invite me inside?” Hawke said, not without good humor.

Anders blinked twice, coming back to himself. He bowed slightly and said, faux-polite, “Of course, young miss. Do you have a reservation?”

“Gee, I _think_ I made one,” Hawke said, playing along. “It _was_ a reservation for two, but I don’t think my date’s here yet. Damn shame, really.” She looked up at him and winked. “Guess you’ll have to do.”

They shared a moment of laughter, and Anders pulled the door open wider to let Hawke step inside. He shut the door behind her. “The place is kind of small, but it’s clean, so—”

Hawke interrupted him with a sudden sneeze. And then another. And another. And then—“Shit!” Hawke said, between sneezes, rubbing furiously at her eyes.

“What? What is it?” Anders said, bending down to look Hawke in the face, noticing that her eyes had gone red and puffy and her nose was running. _Oh, no._

“I forgot! I fucking—ACHOOO!—forgot you had cats! I’m—”

_Those are signs of . . ._

“—allergic to—ACHOOO!—cats, Anders!”

“Oh,” Anders said, and practically shoved Hawke towards the door and back out into the hallway, grabbing a box of tissues from the kitchen counter as he went.

Several awkward apologies and wet tissues later, Anders went back into his apartment to retrieve the flowers, mood incredibly dampened by the calamity. He didn’t want Merrill’s hard work to go to waste, so he wanted Hawke to at least see the flowers, but that meant putting all of them back into their huge basket and leaving Hawke out in the hallway, alone, not five minutes after she had arrived, on their _first date_. But he supposed there was nothing else he could do if he wanted her to at least look at them.

Hawke was sitting with her back up against the opposite wall, popping Benadryl, when Anders ventured back out into the hallway, basket of flowers in tow. Her eyes were mostly the right color by now, and her nose had stopped running. She stood up when she saw what he was carrying.

“What on earth are those? I thought we were going to dinner, not a float parade.”

“These,” Anders said, holding the basket aloft with some difficulty, “are for you.”

Hawke stared at the flowers for quite a few moments, the seconds ticking by like miniature eternities, before she looked back up at Anders and said, “For me?”

He could only nod.

“Wow, that’s . . .” Hawke was staring at the flowers again. She brushed a finger thoughtfully against an iris. “That’s . . . really nice of you. Like, really nice of you.” She smiled at him, wide, teeth showing, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Genuine. His heart stuttered. “Thank you, Anders,” she said, gentler than her usual tone.

“It wasn’t really that big of a deal,” Anders said, wanting to explain, but Hawke had already picked up a bouquet and was examining its contents.

“Oh, they’re _gorgeous_ ,” she said, her eyes practically lit up with delight as she put the first arrangement back and picked up another that was brimming with daisies. She squinted at it quizzically. “Did you get these from Merrill?” she asked, penny finally dropping.

Anders nodded. “I had no idea she was a florist until today. She was a lifesaver, I wouldn’t have been able to navigate that place if my life depended on it. She gave me these for free, actually.” He looked away sheepishly. “I didn’t really do much work at all.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hawke said, still smiling like a loon. “Don’t get all ‘tragic hero’ on me now. This is perfect. Merrill knows what I like, you did all the hard work just going to the right place.” She placed the bouquet back in the basket. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving, your arms look tired, and the only thing I can think of that’s better than free flowers is free food.”

“The food isn’t free for _me_ ,” Anders said, but nonetheless put the basket back in his apartment, taking care to whisper a quiet “Good night” to his cats before turning off the lights and locking the door behind him.

“Madam,” he said, continuing the earlier joke, unfortunate allergy attack far behind them at this point, “shall we now be off to the evening meal?”

Hawke curtsied (surprisingly well), took his arm, and said, “We shall. To the carriage!”

The carriage happened to be Hawke’s old black Mustang that looked as if it had seen much better days, and Anders asked why they didn’t just take his car, to which Hawke replied, “You’re already treating me to dinner, can’t have you paying for the gas money too,” but Anders privately suspected it was so Hawke could show off her (clearly rare and vintage) car. Not that he was complaining; he _had_ been treating Hawke to a lot of meals lately, and those weren’t cheap in the city. It was nice to let Hawke drive and let him give the directions, sort of a reverse of Wednesday night.

Dinner wasn’t far from Anders’ apartment, only about a ten-minute drive; they probably could have walked there, in all honesty, but who wanted to get all clean and dressed up just to spend half an hour getting sweaty and tired? Hawke, at least, seemed to be fine with driving, because the instant she got in the car she turned on the radio full-blast and didn’t turn it down until they pulled into the parking lot behind the restaurant.

“So what is this place, anyway?” Hawke said as they made their way around to the front entrance.

“Just someplace a coworker recommended to me a while back,” Anders said. “I, ah, don’t really get out much, so I haven’t gotten a chance to come here until now. It’s . . . not the sort of place you want to dine alone in, shall we say.”

“Hmm,” was the only thing Hawke said in reply as they pushed open the swinging glass doors of the entrance. The place, Anders could see, was _very_ nice—nicer than he’d expected, if he was honest. Sparkling clean tile floors, chandeliers, white cloth napkins folded into swans and lilies and who knew what else, waitstaff who were better dressed than he was—it was all very intimidating, and Anders almost felt his wallet crumple up in fear. But he put on a brave face (mustn’t let Hawke know this sort of thing was out of his league) and stepped up to the maître d’ to confirm their reservations.

“I feel a bit underdressed,” Hawke said, not without good humor, after they’d been seated and provided with menus Anders could barely decipher (so much French!). Much to his chagrin, it seemed the prices matched the decor.

“You?” Anders chuckled, putting the menu down and resigning himself to the cheapest appetizer they served. “No, don’t be silly, it’s me who needs to work on my wardrobe. _You_ look perfect.”

“Oh?” Hawke said, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Well, that’s—I mean—” If Anders didn’t know better, he’d say she was flustered. “That’s . . . really sweet of you to say, Doc.” She smiled at him over the menu. “Thanks. But hey, don’t put yourself down for my sake. You might look bad compared to me, but that doesn’t mean you can’t roll with the best of them.”

 _She complimented me . . . sort of. God, I hope I’m not blushing. I’m probably blushing. Shit._ “Sorry, Hawke, but it’s the truth. A doctor always tells the truth. We have to. Hippocratic Oath and all that.”

Hawke squinted at him, suspicious. “That’s not what the Hippocratic Oath says.” Then her eyebrows scrunched together, second-guessing her memory. “Is it?”

“I’m afraid so. To a T. Remember, I can’t lie to you,” Anders said, barely keeping a straight face. He could tell Hawke was having the same problem.

“But if you _were_ lying about the Oath,” Hawke protested, pointing an accusing finger at Anders’ nose, “then that would mean the Oath didn’t keep you from lying. So you _could_ have been lying, this entire time, you . . . liar!” Evidently that was the best she could come up with when trying to keep herself from breaking out into peals of laughter in the middle of a fancy restaurant.

Anders had to bite his tongue to keep from doing the same. His eyes were starting to water with the effort. “If I’ve been lying all this time, then it stands to reason I lied about most _everything_. My job, my home, my cats . . . my own name, even!”

Hawke gasped faux-scandalously, putting an offended hand to her chest. “ _Anders_. I never knew, all this time . . . you’re a . . . a _stranger_ to me!”

Somewhere along the road, they’d acquired ridiculous Regency-era British accents and bad soap-opera acting, and their little discussion had grown quite lively. People’s heads were starting to turn in the otherwise subdued atmosphere of the restaurant. “Alas, it’s all true, dear Hawke! All these months you’ve known me, it’s all been an elaborate scheme to gain your trust. I am no doctor!”

 _“No!”_ Hawke pounded a fist on the table for emphasis, making the cutlery and glasses clatter. “It can’t be!”

“It’s true! I am but a lowly—yet cunning—con man, and this brief tryst with you has been my greatest ploy of all!”

Hawke fell back in her chair with a despairing cry, hand to her forehead. “ _Anders!_ How could you? All this time, I thought you really lo—”

 _“Ahem,”_ came a voice from above.

Anders looked up and saw a mustachioed waiter was standing by their table, a small notebook and pen in his hands, staring at them with more than a little annoyance. “ _May_ I take your order?”

“You most _certainly_ may,” Hawke said, still sitting back in her chair in a distinctly unladylike fashion, seemingly unperturbed by the interruption. “I’ll have the duck, _s’il vous plaît_.” She smiled winningly up at the man, who didn’t seem at all impressed by her French accent (which, to be fair, was pretty awful).

“And I’ll just have the _soup du jour_ ,” Anders said, purposely matching Hawke’s poor accent. This only served to further ruffle the waiter’s feathers, and he rushed from their table as soon as he’d scribbled their order down.

That was the last straw for Anders and Hawke. They burst into giggles, only partially managing to stifle their laughter with their hands. Frankly, by this point, Anders didn’t much care who heard them. Hawke snorted as she laughed, which only made her laugh harder, and that was the only thing Anders paid any mind to.

Eventually, their laughter died down, and they chatted amicably for a while as they waited for their food to arrive. Anders found himself far more relaxed than he had been when they first sat down; once you got caught performing a soap opera scene, there was really nothing else that could embarrass you in a place like that.

After about forty-five minutes, a waiter arrived (notably, he was different than the one who had taken their orders) with their still-steaming plates of food. Anders dug in immediately—he hadn’t eaten since lunch—and found the soup was actually pretty good, considering he couldn’t identify most of the ingredients in it and it had been garnished within an inch of its life.

Hawke, however, was poking at the meat on her plate with a fork and making a face like it personally offended her.

Anders put down his spoon and said, “Something wrong with the duck?”

“I don’t know,” Hawke said. “I’ve actually never had duck before, so for all I know, this is normal. But it smells gross and it looks even worse than it smells.”

Anders peered over at her plate. “It looks like a tiny chicken,” he said, taking a sniff. “Smells like it, too.”

“Ugh,” Hawke said, pushing her plate away. “That’s an insult to chickens everywhere. Can I try some of your soup?”

Without waiting for an answer, she reached across the table to take his spoon and have a taste. “Ugh,” she repeated, handing it back to him. “That’s no good, either.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Anders asked, smiling slightly, because he was fairly certain by now that Hawke simply didn’t have quite the palate this restaurant required.

“Too many flavors, and none of them are good,” Hawke said. “That duck was almost twenty dollars, too. I can’t believe we have to _pay_ for this shit.”

Suddenly, Hawke got a glint in her eyes that Anders really didn’t like. She sat up in her chair and stared across the table at him, grinning like a cat who had fallen into a dish of cream. “Or _do_ we?” she said.

Anders had a spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth, but lowered it in favor of asking, “. . . Hawke?”

“EEEEEK!!” Hawke screeched, so abruptly that Anders swore he cleared a foot above his chair when he started. She leaped out of her seat and pointed at Anders’ soup, arm shaking and other hand covering her mouth as though she was trying not to vomit. It was quite the show, and now _everyone_ was staring at them.

A waiter rushed over (through his confusion, Anders noted it was the mustachioed one from earlier in the evening), frantically asking what was the matter, but Hawke seemed unable to form a reply, practically fainting into the waiter’s arms as she continued to scream.

“A TOE!” she finally shouted, “THERE’S A _TOE_ IN HIS _SOUP_!!”

 _You fucking crazy genius,_ Anders thought, as he jumped up from his chair and gesticulated wildly with his arms. “A _TOE_?!” he cried plaintively at Hawke.

She nodded several times in rapid succession. “A _TOE_.”

“I’ll be dead by morning!” Anders cried, falling dramatically to the ground, clutching at his throat as though he were choking. By now a crowd of waiters and patrons had formed around them, and those who were still seated were beginning to lower their utensils and push their plates away from themselves. A few frantic waiters attempted to lift Anders back to his feet, but he allowed his dead weight to pull him down to the floor.

“Somebody must be responsible for this!” Hawke was saying, pushing herself away from Mustache Guy to spin around and face him. “My young gentleman has just eaten _tainted soup_ , he could be poisoned for all we know! I _demand_ you get the chef who created this . . . _monstrosity_ , and bring him out here to personally apologize to him!”

“R-Right away, Miss, of course!” Mustache stammered out before scurrying away towards the kitchens. As soon as his back was turned, Hawke lunged at Anders with newfound vigor and pulled him to his feet, hardly giving him a moment to catch his breath before dragging him away from the crowd and towards the front doors.

“I thought we were— _oof_ —going to complain to the chef!” Anders said, panting, as they exited the restaurant and started racing down the sidewalk.

“Rule number one, Doc—never take too long to leave the scene of a crime!” Hawke cried, grinning like they’d just absconded with bags of money, rather than stomachs of overpriced French cuisine.

“How many times have you _done_ this?”

Hawke tugged him into a sharp right down an alley. “Enough to know how to get away with it.” They took another right at the end of the alley and Anders saw they were back in the lot behind the restaurant where Hawke had parked her car. They made a mad dash for the vehicle and scrambled inside, not bothering with seatbelts (in this one instance, Anders figured, it was forgivable) as Hawke peeled out of the lot, nearly crashing into a lamppost when she turned back onto the main street.

They were both panting, out of breath after all the excitement, but laughing giddily. “That was—” Anders started to say, just as Hawke said, “You were—”

They stopped and glanced over at each other, twin smiles on their faces. “You first,” Anders said.

“I was gonna say, you were pretty good back there for a beginner, Doc,” Hawke said, putting her eyes back on the road. “You played along and everything . . . though you might’ve gone a bit too far with the fainting thing.”

Anders barked out a laugh. “You’re one to talk! I seem to recall you _literally_ fainting into Mustache Guy’s arms.”

Hawke sniffed faux-pompously, sitting up in her leather seat. “I’m a lady. It’s expected for _ladies_ to faint when they find a toe in someone’s soup. When _gentlemen_ do it, it’s weird.”

Anders let that particular argument go for the moment, because something Hawke said had caught his attention. “You called me a gentleman earlier, too. _My young gentleman,_ I think those were your exact words.”

He didn’t miss the tension that appeared in Hawke’s shoulders at that remark. “We were play-acting. I was just doing my lines. _You_ said you’d be dead by morning, how is that any less ridiculous, huh?” She paused to merge into the left lane, then said, “So what were you going to say, anyway? Earlier, I mean. When you interrupted me.”

Anders chuckled—of course she’d paint it that way. “I was just saying that that was the most fun I’ve had in a _really_ long time. So . . . thank you, Hawke.” He meant it, too. For the past few years, Anders had spent his Friday nights doing nothing more exciting than watching action movies on Netflix with a cat on his lap. He had acquaintances, sure, people who worked at the clinic who he would eat lunch with on occasion, but no one close enough to warrant an invitation to a party or bar. College had been . . . different, to say the least, but those days were behind him now, and ever since he’d returned from his _post-graduate sojourn_ , he hadn’t been in the sort of mood to make any close friends. Concentrate on work, that’s what he always told himself, and it had worked just fine for a while.

But then Hawke had all but flung herself into his life with the grace of a drunken swan, and flipped everything upside-down and sideways, and honestly Anders wasn’t sure what to think anymore. It was nice, he supposed, to go out on the town once in a while—he was fairly sure he’d spent more time away from his apartment and work since meeting Hawke than he had in the last six months combined. She might be impulsive, chaotic, spontaneous, and prone to somewhat illegal activities, but Hawke was good for him, in a way. She shoved him straight out of his comfort zone in a way that made him _want_ to be out of it—which, okay, was probably not ideal, but damn if he cared anymore. He was having _fun_ , he was _happy_ , for what seemed like the first time in a really long time, and the fact of the matter was that Hawke was a large part of that. Hell, she was _all_ of that. Hawke made him happy, and he suspected he made her happy too, and they were on an actual date, and he’d made her laugh, and she liked him, she’d said so, at lunch earlier that week, and he loved her—

And there it was.

 _Oh,_ thought Anders.

Oh, _fuck_.

* * *

Mal was starting to get worried—after their initial conversation after escaping the restaurant, Anders had gotten quiet. She’d been driving aimlessly for about forty-five minutes now, and the man had yet to say another word. Not that she really minded—all the excitement of the evening had worn her out, and Anders was probably just sleepy, that was all. She wished she didn’t have to have her eyes on the road and could just stare at his face for a while. It was the kind of face that was nice to stare at.

Finally, she broke the silence: “Want me to take you home? Or d’you wanna . . . y’know . . . come back to my place or whatever?”

Anders huffed a laugh. “Don’t get too enthusiastic or anything.” He did sound sleepy. It was fucking adorable. “We can just go back to my apartment, if that’s alright with you.”

“Sure, no problem.” She wasn’t disappointed. She was _not_.

She mostly remembered where Anders’ apartment was. Still, it was a long drive back, and Anders was dozing off again. She didn’t want to turn on the radio and wake him, so she resigned herself to another half-hour of silence.

To her surprise, Anders spoke up a few minutes later. “This has been the most interesting date I’ve ever been on, you know.”

“Yeah? Well, I always try to deliver.”

A chuckle. “Did you walk in that place expecting to have to run out like that? Or was it all on the fly?”

“Hey,” Mal said, feigning offense, “I can improvise when I want to. It just requires a bit of preparation.”

“You prepare to improvise? Seems counter-intuitive.” She could just _see_ his eyebrow going up, the bastard.

“Don’t critique the master till you can best her.”

This time, she got a full-on laugh. “Now that, that’s really great. It rhymes and everything. You should trademark that.”

Mal hummed thoughtfully. “I really should.”

They talked like that for a while, trading jibes and quips in the easy, back-and-forth banter that Mal had grown accustomed to. The date hadn’t exactly gone the way dates normally went—not that she had much experience with that sort of thing, but she had enough, thank you very much—but Anders had had fun, at the very least. Though, come to think of it, Mal had had fun too. Even if that duck had tasted weird.

This had been . . . pretty kind of mostly nice.

By the time they got back to Anders’ place it was almost eleven, and Mal briefly considered making a joke about sleeping over, but decided against it. A little too forward, that was, for her liking. Which was idiotic, because hadn’t _she_ been the one to suggest the date in the first place? Not to mention the flirting.

Anders was more awake than he had been before, but just as quiet. They ascended the apartment stairs and reached his door in silence, stopping just outside. It was all very clichéd, and Mal winced internally at how stereotypical it all was. And, of course, Anders was just fucking _staring_ at her, with this dumb little smile on his stupid cute face.

“You gonna go inside, or what?” she said, to alleviate the tension.

Anders laughed, and started digging around in his pockets for his keys. “If you don’t want to come inside, you don’t have to, you know,” he said, jiggling the key in the lock.

Mal’s heart sunk just a fraction in her chest. “Oh, that’s—”

“But, I mean,” Anders continued, slipping inside and holding the door open, “if you want to, you can.” He looked hopeful.

Okay, her heart was back in the right place now. “Yeah, sure. Why not,” she said, feigning indifference. It was harder than it usually was.

Anders flipped on the lights and shut the door behind them. Mal’s nose itched slightly, but the Benadryl she’d taken earlier seemed to have abated her reaction to the cat hair that was strewn on what she was sure was every surface of the apartment. She hadn’t gotten a very good look at the place before, but now she saw it was almost as small as her own apartment, maybe even smaller. The furniture was sparse and plain, and, aside from the ever-present cat fur, the place was neat and clean. Anders, she knew, didn’t spend as much time away from his work as he probably should, and evidently he didn’t care to spruce up his home given how little time he spent there. Still, the place was cozy and comfortable, and Mal flopped onto the overstuffed couch in the corner of the room and pulled out her phone, trying to act as casual as possible.

Anders was busy taking his jacket off and ushering his cats into the other room, saying goodnight to each in turn (how many of them _were_ there, anyway?), so Mal allowed herself a quick glance at his ass as he bent down to talk to them. _Not bad,_ she noted shrewdly before turning back to her phone. _Quite nice, in fact._ She looked again. _Veeeery nice._

Anders abruptly stood and turned to face her, and she had to quickly look away again. She heard him chuckle from across the room, and steadfastly trained her eyes on her phone so she wouldn’t have to see his damned smile.

“Were you staring at me when I wasn’t looking?” he said, voice playful and so fucking self-satisfied she could almost pretend she didn’t fucking adore it.

“Well, when you say it like _that_ , it sounds creepy.”

She still hadn’t looked up from her phone, but in her peripheral vision she could see Anders sit down next to her on the couch. She half-expected him to nudge up next to her, but instead he settled about a foot away, keeping a respectful distance, and really, the man seemed incapable of pressing his advantage, so she shouldn’t have been surprised.

He craned his neck to see what she was doing on her phone. “Tetris? Really? You do realize what year it is, don’t you?”

Mal tapped the screen and eliminated five rows at once. Grinning smugly, she said, “Don’t judge me, I’ve seen you play Angry Birds.”

Anders huffed indignantly, but she could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “Touché.”

Mal put away her phone, remembering she was in someone’s home and it was probably impolite to just stare at a screen when they were sitting right next to her. Especially since she’d been staring at their ass earlier. She looked over at Anders, and for a split second they made eye contact before he turned to face forward again.

She raised an eyebrow. “Now who’s staring at who?”

Anders chuckled, a hint of a blush touching his ears. Suddenly, he straightened, bringing his hands together. “I almost forgot. A friend of mine gave me a really nice bottle of wine a few years back, and I still have it, so I figured if I was going to save it for a special occasion, this one’s as good as any.”

Hmm. Good wine. Might be a nice change of pace to drink something decent, for once. Divesting herself of her jacket, she said, “Sounds fine. Don’t expect me to wax poetic about it, though, I’d be surprised if my taste buds can tell the difference.”

They were halfway through their second glass each (Anders had initially vowed to only have the one, but with a little needling, Mal soon convinced him otherwise) when the door on the other side of the room, the one Anders had stuffed the cats into, creaked open. Mal’s hand immediately went for her purse, where she kept her Benadryl, but the cat that slunk into the room and made a beeline for Anders was a hairless Sphynx, so Mal figured she could let this one slide.

“Hello, Duchess! Oh, are you—?” Anders started to say to her as the cat wriggled its way into his lap and made itself comfortable.

“It’s fine,” Mal said. “No hair, no allergies. Probably. Anyway, I don’t think it’s moving from that spot even if we wanted it to.” The thing seemed to have gone right to sleep, purring loudly where it lay snugly in Anders’ lap.

“Her name is Duchess Sprinkles,” Anders said, with the air of a man who was announcing an actual duchess, and seemed incapable of self-awareness on any level whatsoever. It was horrible and endearing.

“Pleased to meet you,” Mal said, tipping an imaginary hat to the sleeping animal. They shared a laugh at that. “Where’d you get all of them?” she asked, after a moment.

“All my cats used to be strays,” Anders said, scratching behind the Duchess’ ears. “I kept seeing them wandering around near the apartment complex and in alleys near the clinic. I’m no veterinarian, but I felt so badly for them I took them home and patched them up as best I could. The Duchess, here, was actually the first one I took in. She was starving when I found her, poor thing . . .” Anders rubbed her back gently. “I tried to bring her to the local shelter, but they were so full they couldn’t take any more animals in. So I bought a cage and a litterbox and a collar, and gave her a name, and then I found Admiral Peaches, and, well . . .” He shrugged, like rehabilitating six cats from the street and keeping them in his already cramped apartment was no big deal. “Things just went on from there.”

Mal, for one of the first times in her life, had no idea what to say, so she just said, “Oh.”

“Want to see what’s on?” Anders asked, gesturing to the small, boxy TV in the corner of the room. Mal nodded, and they watched for a while, some dumb game show, sipping on their wine until the bottle was empty. It had probably been good wine, Mal thought, but it was gone now and any wine that didn’t magically replenish itself was no good to anyone, given enough time.

The game show ended and Anders switched the TV off, and without the wine and screen to distract them, Mal was really starting to feel the edge of awkwardness in the silence of the room. She and Anders were just _sitting_ there, a good foot or two away from each other on the couch, staring forward at a blank screen, saying nothing.

Anders cleared his throat. “So, uh . . .”

 _Okay,_ Mal thought. _Okay. Fuck it._

Fuck. It.

She turned to face him. He turned to look over at her, a question on his lips.

She beat him to it, though. She was good at that. Four not-dates, one actual date, and she had to initiate, every damn time. Not that she minded. She didn’t mind one bit.

“Just fucking _kiss me_ , alright, Doc?”

Anders’ eyes widened a fraction, and his mouth curved into a smile. “That, I can do.”

They met in the middle, lips and teeth crashing together, and it actually really hurt for a second before they got themselves adjusted—Anders’ lips warm on her own, sucking and biting, harsher than she would have expected, but hey, she wasn’t complaining. She squirmed a little closer to him so she could wrap her arms around his waist, and—

_“Mrow!!”_

“Shit!”

The unfortunate Duchess Sprinkles had apparently been awakened by the ruckus and was now attempting to wriggle out from between the two of them. Mumbling apologies, Anders quickly extracted himself from the couch and scooped the Duchess up in his arms, carrying her over to the bedroom and all but shoving her inside, slamming the door behind her.

“Shit, okay, sorry about that,” Anders was saying, sitting back down on the couch with a self-conscious chuckle. “I completely forgot she was there, and—well—”

Mal was laughing her ass off by this point. Wiping a tear from her eye, she said, “Wow, am I glad I asked you out on a date,” and lunged forward to kiss him again.

This time it was a little better; without a cat in the way Mal was free to take up as much lap real estate as she liked. They took their time, lips meeting and parting again as they came up for air, and Anders’ lips were surprisingly soft, at least as soft as some of the girls she’d kissed before, if not softer. Her hands started wandering again, to his hair that he kept in that weird little ponytail she was tempted to unravel, to the buttons on his shirt she was tempted to snap open. She refrained, though, taking her sweet time, and Anders seemed to be fine with that arrangement, because he groaned a little into her mouth, and even though her eyes were closed she could feel him blushing against her own face, and, well, wasn’t _that_ just something.

Anders moved his hand around to her back and pulled them even closer together, and he must have pulled a little too hard because Mal felt herself falling forward for a second before being caught again, Anders underneath her, lying on his back with his arms around her, pulling her back in for another kiss.

The next time she was forced to come up for air she pulled back a bit, staring down at the man beneath her. Anders’ face was flushed, making his freckles stand out all the more, his hair a spiky mess against the couch cushions, lips pink and swollen from the kisses. He was breathing a little heavily, and when he opened his eyes and looked up at her he grinned from ear to ear.

“Well,” Mal said, feeling out of breath herself.

“Having fun?” Anders said, and really, no man who owned a frankly dangerous number of cats and spent most of his time at a doctor’s office should have been so damn sexy in that moment.

To think that Mal had had doubts about this. She was a madwoman to have put this off for so long.

“Fuck _yeah_ ,” she said, and fell back on top of him.

She allowed herself to get a little rougher, this time around. She bit at Anders’ lips and tugged at his hair (which earned her the nicest moan she’d probably ever heard), and when she took a little detour to bite at his neck (leaving a hickey, she was certain), Anders all but shouted, his voice high and keening in Mal’s ear. And, hello, _something_ was certainly happening between Anders’ legs by this time, and she felt oddly self-satisfied when she ground her thigh against his groin and Anders cried out again, bucking his hips up and rutting against the friction as best he could. Shit, it must have been awhile since he’d had anything but his hand, and Mal almost felt bad for him.

It was hard to feel bad for someone, though, when they were panting desperately underneath you and fumbling at the zipper of your dress.

“Who’s having fun now?” Mal muttered into Anders’ neck, and he squirmed in her grip and started—was that _giggling_?

Reluctantly, Mal sat up again to get a better look and holy fuck, yep, that was definitely giggling, though Anders was trying to muffle it with his hand.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said hurriedly, trying to tug Mal back down, but she had her own agenda now, and she quickly ducked her head to blow a raspberry into Anders’ collarbone.

Anders practically _screamed_ with laughter, writhing and thrashing his limbs, trying to squirm out of Mal’s grip, but she was too fast for him and started tickling at his sides, cackling with victory as Anders squirmed under her hands and laughed hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

Finally, she left off somewhat, letting Anders catch his breath. “You— _heh_ —are the _worst_ ,” he said, still grinning. “Taking advantage of me like that—me, a poor, helpless man in the throes of passion.” He pouted, and Mal snorted in amusement even as she laid back down on top of him.

“Well maybe if _someone_ had told me sooner that they were _ticklish_ ,” Mal said, running her fingers down his side and coercing another giggle out of him, “I wouldn’t have exploited it so much in the so-called _throes of passion_.” This last she did in the snootiest accent she could muster.

Mal was halfway to his lips for another kiss, eyes sliding shut again, when Anders laughed and murmured, “God, I love you.”

Mal’s eyes snapped open and she froze, inches from Anders’ flushed face, who seemed to be rapidly coming to the realization of what he’d just said, if his look of growing horror was any indication.

“Hawke—” he said as Mal sat up slowly and started to turn away, fumbling over at the other side of the couch for her jacket—“Hawke, oh fuck, I didn’t mean to say that, _shit_ , I just—” the fucking thing was lying on the floor but her legs were all tangled up with Anders’ and she couldn’t get free—“Hawke, please, come back, I’m sorry, I didn’t—” and finally she was off the couch and snatching her jacket off the floor and was all but running for the door and Anders was still calling her name but she couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say, didn’t understand why she was on the verge of tears— _“Hawke!”_ —and in an instant she was under the too-bright fluorescent lights of the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

She told herself it was the wine that made the drive home so shaky, rather than her hands trembling on the wheel.

 

* * *

 _Never let it be said,_ Anders thought as he sat on his bed, holding the Duchess in his lap and petting Madame Littlefoot with his other hand, _that cats are not a suitable substitute for heartbreak ice cream._ It was so much easier to joke with himself inside his head than to think about what had happened, and he was perfectly fine with thinking about nothing and cuddling with a pile of cats until the world came to an end.

He was still in his (now badly rumpled) clothes from the previous night, not having had the heart to change after Hawke had all but fled from his apartment. And him. He’d been so shocked and upset that he hadn’t even bothered to get up from the couch for several long minutes afterwards, and then he’d made a beeline for his bedroom and perhaps the only creatures in the world who could make him feel better. And he did feel marginally less crushed than before, true, but having someone quite literally run out on you after you made the mistake of opening your heart to them just a little too much was not a feeling that was easily remedied.

He glanced over at the bedroom door where his suit jacket was still hanging on the knob, remembering the poppy resting in its breast pocket. He sighed, wishing he’d at least given it to her before everything had fallen apart. The other flowers he could get rid of, somehow, but it felt wrong to just throw away something that was meant for Hawke and Hawke alone.

“She deserved that one flower, at least,” he said to the Duchess, who purred in what he imagined to be agreement. “And now I’m never going to see her again.”

Suddenly, the Honorable Sir Pugsy, who had been sitting by Anders’ knee, leapt off the bed and streaked across the carpet towards the door. He began clawing at it, fluffy tail undulating back and forth as he mewled for attention.

Anders rolled his eyes and extracted himself from the other cats still on the bed. “Seriously? Now’s the time you decide you have to use the litterbox? I’m a little bit busy having an emotional br—”

He stopped short when he saw that Pugsy wasn’t clawing at the door; he was clawing at the suit jacket. Batting the thing around like it was a dangling toy—something Anders wouldn’t be surprised to see Madame Littlefoot or Professor Alfonzo do, but something that, to his knowledge, Pugsy had never done before.

Anders approached cautiously, squinting at the display. Pugsy meowed again and kept pawing at the jacket.

“How about it, boy?” Anders said. “You trying to tell me something?”

Pugsy meowed. That was all the encouragement Anders needed.

“Alright,” he said, straightening and pulling the jacket back on with a flourish. “I’m going to call her,” he turned back to the bed to address the rest of the cats, “and then, if she’s willing, I’m going to go to her apartment and give her this damned flower, and then I’ll never think about any of this ever again. You guys be good while I’m gone!” he said, and, grabbing his keys, flew out the door.

Pausing in the middle of the hallway outside his apartment, Anders pulled out his phone and dialed Hawke’s number, intending to ask her if he could come by and say one final goodbye, and possibly give her the poppy. He was halfway through punching the number in when his phone started vibrating, and a screen popped up that said: **Call from: ??? Hawke**

Anders raised an eyebrow, sliding right and raising the phone to his ear with a calm but admittedly shaky-sounding “Hello?”

“Hey,” Hawke’s voice crackled through the phone. He couldn’t discern her tone through the static, so he didn’t say anything at first. “I, uh, I guess I’m calling to apologize. Back there, at your place, that was . . . that was kind of a dick move. I was just freaked out, I mean what you said, it was a weird thing to say, and I panicked, I guess. But, I mean, what you said . . . it wasn’t . . .”

She drifted off, so Anders took the opportunity to cut in where he could. “Hawke, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I wasn’t thinking straight and I didn’t mean to say it—” Anders scrubbed a hand over his face. “Christ, Hawke, I’m just so fucking sorry.”

“Well I’m not exactly looking for your forgiv—oh,” Hawke said, cutting herself off, clearly not anticipating an apology. “Oh. Well then. Thank you. I guess.”

“I shouldn’t have said it,” Anders went on, running a hand through his hair. “And I . . . I don’t _understand_ why you left but it’s . . . alright. And if you never want to see me again, that I can understand.”

Hawke huffed out a sigh. “Well I don’t want _that_ ,” she said. “Honestly, Doc, sometimes you’re just too dramatic for your own good.”

She sounded less angry than before, at least. That wasn’t nothing. “Look, this probably isn’t a conversation we should be having over the phone,” Anders said. “Could I . . . come by your place? Just so we can talk about this. I—”

“Yeah,” Hawke said. “Yeah, fine. Sure. You know where I’ll be.” And she hung up.

Anders was usually a fairly competent, polite driver, but desperate times called for desperate measures, which was why he was speeding down the freeway going at least twenty above the speed limit. Irrationally, he was afraid Hawke would just leave if he didn’t get to her place fast enough, or—far more reasonably—that she would call him and tell him she’d changed her mind, and she didn’t want to see him after all.

No call came, however, and Anders pulled up to Hawke’s building and raced upstairs to her apartment without incident. He raised his fist to knock at her door, but it swung open before he managed it.

“I could hear you stomping all the way up the stairs,” Hawke said, the beginnings of a wry smile tugging at her lips. “You can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds wet, how do you manage to make so much noise?”

“I—”

“Don’t answer that,” Hawke quickly interrupted. “Look, I get that you’re sorry about last night, I believe you. Obviously you didn’t say . . . the thing you said because you were trying to manipulate me.”

“Was . . . that what you thought that was?” Anders said. He’d figured the issue was him moving too fast; the thought that Hawke might think he was _lying_ had never even crossed his mind.

“Well, yes and no.” Hawke leaned against the doorframe, making it clear she had no intention of letting him inside the apartment. “Partly. Part of it was . . . well, okay, like I said, I panicked, and I didn’t . . .” She took a deep breath. “I don’t _do_ that sort of thing, you know? The romance thing. I don’t know that I’ve ever had that with anyone before. I just . . . I had to leave. I’m sorry, but I had to leave. Had to think about stuff for a while.”

“Alright,” Anders said, slowly. “And . . . did you think about stuff?”

Hawke nodded, smile almost there. “Yeah. All night. And for some of the morning.”

“Did you . . . come to some kind of conclusion?” It was like traversing a minefield. Hawke was a lot like a minefield, at the best of times—dangerous, thrilling, unexpected. Anders found himself rapidly warming to minefields.

“Like I told you, I had the thought you might have been trying to manipulate me, but honestly, I wasn’t too convinced of that. I don’t think you’d be able to lie to me, anyway.” She made a noise that almost sounded like a laugh. “So I decided to call you and . . . have this conversation, I guess. Try to explain why I did what I did, and possibly get very angry with you for doing what you did.” Hawke stared him down for a few moments. “I’m not all that angry, though.”

Anders had to fight to keep the smile off his face. “Being not angry with me is a good start.”

Hawke arched an eyebrow. “Good start to what, Doc? Sounds to me like you’re getting a little too optimistic, here.”

“Hey, I’m just glad you’re not angry,” he said. “You’re scary when you’re angry.”

Hawke scoffed. “You haven’t _seen_ me angry, Doc. That day at the café? That was nothing. Believe me, when I’m angry, you’ll know it, as long as you’re within a ten mile radius.”

Anders laughed, and was far too pleased with himself when Hawke joined in. “I’d better stay away, then,” he said, only half-jokingly.

“Hmm.” Hawke looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. You don’t have to stay _too_ far away.”

Anders could actually feel his heartbeat get faster. “Oh?”

“I mean, it all depends,” Hawke said, taking great care to avoid Anders’ eyes. “The . . . thing you said last night. Did you mean it?”

“I didn’t mean to say it,” Anders said, and Hawke was right; he couldn’t lie to her at all. “But yeah, I meant it.”

“Oh,” Hawke said, and her eyes finally met his. “Good.”

And then she surged up and grabbed Anders’ shirt and kissed him like she couldn’t breathe. Their first kiss had been beyond amazing, but, as Anders wrapped his arms around Hawke’s torso and pulled her as close to him as he could, he found that this one was even better.

It didn’t last as long, however, because Hawke was _very_ close and Anders could feel the tiny flower in his pocket flattening between their chests. Reluctantly, he broke the kiss—not without giving Hawke an extra peck at the end—drew back and said, “Wait, before this gets any more heated, there’s something I want to give you.”

“Yeah?” Hawke said, gripping his arms and pulling him through the doorway. “You can give me whatever you like right now, Doc.”

Anders rolled his eyes. A minefield, indeed. “Not what I meant.”

“That’s too b—” Hawke said, just as Shaun came bounding in from the other room, tail wagging ferociously, slobbering everywhere, and knocked into their legs at full force. Hawke had apparently been bracing for it (or possibly she was just used to this), because while she remained standing Anders was thrown to the ground, nearly twisting his ankle in the process. Shaun, naturally, took the opportunity to slobber all over Anders’ face with dog kisses that were far less welcome than Hawke’s had been earlier.

“Hawke, do you think you can— _ack_ —control your animal?” Anders cried between attempts at dodging Shaun’s drooling maw. He was struggling to get to his feet, but Hawke was busy laughing hysterically and filming the whole thing on her phone.

After what was in Anders’ opinion far too much saliva on his face to ever be considered appropriate, Hawke was finally able to stop cackling long enough to distract Shaun with a squeaky toy and lead him into his crate. Hawke handed him a towel, which he made immediate use of. _Ugh. Dogs._

“Sorry,” Hawke said, still chuckling and not sounding sorry in the least. “That means he likes you.”

“Good to know,” Anders muttered, furiously toweling his hair.

Hawke had turned back to her phone. “This is going on every social networking site I know of.”

Anders didn’t even want to start on that one; he knew it was a losing battle. “This is why I have cats. At least when I come home to my apartment, I’m not mauled by a bear the instant I walk in the door.” He tested his weight on his leg. “I think he hurt my ankle.”

“You’re a doctor, you can take care of it,” Hawke said flippantly, flopping down onto the couch. “You keep a stethoscope in your bag, right? You’ve got this.”

Anders put the towel away and sat next to her. “I don’t think you quite understand what a stethoscope is used for,” he said, amused.

Hawke waved a dismissive hand. “Doctor stuff. I don’t have to know it, I’ve got you around.”

 _You do have me._ “So, this gift . . .” Anders said, trying to get the conversation back on track. That was the reason they’d bothered to go inside, after all.

“Oh, yeah!” Hawke said, sitting up. “What is it?”

Anders pulled the (crumpled, slightly flattened, already browning) poppy out of his pocket, holding it out to her with as much dignity as he could muster after being attacked by a giant dog. “When I bought all those bouquets from Merrill, she told me poppies were your favorite flower. She gave me this one specially for you.”

Hawke didn’t speak as she took the (wilting) flower, but the look on her face said everything for her. At least, Anders hoped that her widened eyes and slightly parted lips meant she was surprised and pleased. Otherwise he was going to have to think of an escape plan.

“Anders,” Hawke said, and yes, she was decidedly pleased. “This is . . .” She shook her head. “This is very sweet. Thank you.”

“Read what it says on the ribbon,” he told her.

She squinted at the letters he’d printed as carefully as possible on the golden fabric. “ ‘For Hawke, the one bright light in this city.’ ” She smiled, wide and genuine, and in that moment it didn’t matter that they’d met at a doctor’s office, or that Hawke was allergic to cats, or that their first date had ended in disaster, or that Anders’ face was still sticky from dog slobber, none of it mattered one bit, because Hawke was smiling like he’d given her the sun, instead of just a tiny, dying flower he’d gotten for free and written a note on.

“My name is Mal,” said Hawke, voice gone soft.

Anders blinked. “What?”

“Technically, it’s Marian,” Hawke—Mal—Marian— _something_ went on. “I’ve never liked my real name much, though, so people call me after my dad, Malcolm.” She played with the ribbon as she spoke. “I say people, but really the only ones who call me something besides Hawke are my siblings. And Varric, very occasionally. It’s . . . something for people close to me. You know?”

Anders nodded, still trying to process all this. “So, can I call you . . . ?”

“Yeah. Yes,” Hawke— _Mal_ said. “You can call me Mal. If you want.”

“I do want,” Anders said, genuinely touched. Of all things, Mal could move him just by letting him use her first name. A minefield, indeed.

Mal shrugged, like it was no big deal, but he could tell by the grin still playing on her lips that she was just as pleased as he was. “It’s Latin for bad,” she said, “so that’s pretty cool, I guess.”

Anders had to laugh. “I don’t know, Mal.” He liked the sound of the name on his tongue. It fit her well. “You’re not as bad as all that.”

“Oh, I’m _good_ at plenty of things,” Mal said, winking in the most obnoxious way possible. Anders rolled his eyes, but kissed her all the same.

* * *

Their second date, Mal mused, had gone much, much better than the first. Dinner and a drink at a nicer bar than the Hanged Man (though that wasn’t a difficult status to achieve), and then coffee at her apartment. And then make-outs on the couch, and then . . . other things on the bed. Very, _very_ nice things that Mal was not used to with other women. Though that was another story.

She’d woken up sometime around two in the morning, and, unable to fall back asleep, had poked Anders in the arm until he woke up, too. Now they were lying close under the covers, hands roaming freely, chatting about nothing at all.

“Okay, but hypothetically,” Mal was saying, “if you could stay with me forever, but you could never eat another breakfast taco ever again, would you do it?”

“If for some reason,” Anders said, “I had to give up breakfast tacos in order to be with you forever, I’d probably do it.”

Mal considered this for a moment. “But would you give up enchiladas?” she asked, poking him in the stomach and making Anders giggle. She fucking _loved_ making him giggle.

“Hmm . . . nope, sorry. That’s asking too much of me,” Anders said, and pretended to cry out in pain when she punched him in the arm.

They lay quietly for another few moments, Mal curled over Anders’ side, before she broke the silence. “Have you cleaned up all those bunches of flowers from your apartment yet?”

“Hmm, no, not yet,” Anders murmured.

“You should let me come by tomorrow so we can pick them up together. I mean, technically they’re my flowers, so . . .”

She felt more than heard Anders’ laugh against her hair. “Sure, why not. The cats have been getting into them anyway, so it’s probably for the best.”

“Good,” she said. Then, “Oh, fuck.”

“What?”

“I need to buy more Benadryl. For your dumb cats.”

“You don’t really think they’re dumb.”

Mal shook her head. She was too sleepy to argue. “Nah, they’re alright.”

“We should try to sleep,” Anders said. “I’ve got work in the morning.”

“Spoilsport.”

“We’ve _both_ got work in the morning.”

“Fine,” Mal said, snuggling more tightly against him. “Goodnight, then.”

He kissed her nose. “Goodnight, Mal.”

“Hey, Anders?”

“Yeah?”

“Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Don’t tell anybody, alright?”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t buy me stuff on Valentine’s Day or anything.”

“I won’t.”

“And make sure y—”

Anders cut her off with a kiss. _Unfair._ “Get some sleep.”

“Fine.”

They slept through their alarms the next morning and were both late to work, but in the evening they gathered up wilting flowers together and hopped a fence to plant them in a stranger’s backyard.

—THE END—

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading. If you enjoyed this, please leave kudos, and if you really enjoyed it, comments are always appreciated.
> 
> I might consider doing a sequel/spinoff in this universe, possibly something with Merrill or getting more into Anders' backstory, so please let me know if any of you would like to see that.
> 
> Once again, thank you, and have a wonderful day.


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